Nepal: Decades of commercial mountaineering have turned Mount Everest into the world’s highest rubbish dump.
Melting glaciers caused by global warming are exposing trash that has accumulated on the mountain since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made the first successful summit 65 years ago.
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The increasing numbers of big-spending climbers pay little attention to the ugly footprint they leave behind.
The route to the summit of 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) peak is covered in fluorescent tents, discarded climbing equipment, empty gas canisters and even human excrement.
“It is disgusting, an eyesore,” Pemba Dorje Sherpa, who has summited Everest 18 times, told AFP. “The mountain is carrying tonnes of waste.”
Some efforts have been made like five years ago Nepal implemented a $4,000 rubbish deposit per team, that would be refunded when each climber bring down at least eight kilogrammes (18 pounds) of waste.
On the Tibet side of the Himalayan mountain, they are required to bring down the same amount and are fined $100 per kilogramme if they don’t.
In 2017 climbers in Nepal brought down nearly 25 tonnes of trash and 15 tonnes of human waste according to the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC).
This season, even more, was carried down but this is just a fraction of the rubbish dumped each year, the SPCC says.
Many climbers prefer to pay the amount rather than hindering the experience.
Compounding the problem, some officials accept small bribes to turn a blind eye.
“There is just not enough monitoring at the high camps to ensure the mountain stays clean,” Pemba said.
Inexperience:
The Everest industry has boomed in the last two decades and more inexperienced mountaineers are being drawn by low-cost expedition operators desperate for customers.
Previously most climbers would take their own personal kit like extra clothes, food, a sleeping bag as well as supplemental oxygen. But now, many climbers leave the Sherpas and guides to carry everything.
“They have to carry the client’s gear so they are unable to carry down rubbish as they used to do before ,” Benegas said. He added that operators need to employ more high-altitude workers to ensure all clients, their kit and rubbish get safely up and down the mountain.
Raw sewage:
Environmentalists are concerned that the pollution on Everest is also affecting water sources down in the valley.
Garry Porter, a US engineer explained, “The raw sewage from base camp is carried to the next village — a one-hour walk — and dumped into trenches.This then gets flushed downhill during the monsoon into the river”.
They are considering installing a biogas plant near Everest base camp that would turn climber’s excreta into useful fertilisers.
Another solution, proposed by Ang Tsering Sherpa, the Former president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, would be a dedicated rubbish collection team.
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His expedition operator Asian Trekking, which has been running “Eco Everest Expeditions” for the last decade, has brought down over 18 tonnes of trash during that time in addition to the eight-kilo climber quota.
Last month a 30-strong cleanup team retrieved 8.5 tonnes of waste from the northern slopes. “It is not an easy job. The government needs to motivate groups to clean up and enforce rules more strictly,” Ang said.