Preserving the aura of Mount Everest has been a real challenge for the Nepal Government. With a growing number of people visiting the peak every year, Mount Everest is in great danger of pollution that leads to the local watershed contamination.
Mount Everest is called “Sagarmatha” in Nepali language wish means “forehead in the sky”. Being the world’s highest mountain peak standing at the height of 8,849 meters above the sea level, it has been a craze among people to conquer the peak leading to massive overflow of people. Climbing Everest was not possible until Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay stepped at the peak in 1953. Since then, thousands of people try to defeat the giant, some succeed and some fail with no trace of them back.
Attempts to Control Pollution on Everest
Nearly 80,000 visitors climb Mount Everest annually and many of them leave disposable items, wrappers, and soda bottles on their way. Tons and tons of litter generated and disposed by the visitors has made Everest nicknamed “the world’s highest garbage dump”.
Several initiatives have been forwarded and implemented by the government, NGOs and private sectors to control pollution on Everest. Strict government regulation like bringing the trash back and large scale cleaning campaigns by the Nepal Army and the NGOs have been important steps but it is still not enough.
Source: Live Science
The Nepal Army cleans Mount Everest including Lhotse and Annapurna every year. They collected 110 tons of waste since they started their mission in 2019.
A scheme by Nepal Government to manage the waste and encourage climbers to bring their waste down was simply proven a failure after dishonest mountaineers found ways to cheat the system. According to the programme introduced in 2014, the climbers have to pay a deposit of $4,000 (£2,964) which they get back only when they bring their trash back down. While the attempt was expected to bring some positive impact to help clear up the rubbish, the rubbish problem is still the same after 11 years of its implementation.
Most of the deposit made by the climbers has been refunded as majority of them bring their garbage back. However, the problem is that people only bring back garbage from the lower parts while the higher altitudes is still filled with trash.
Source: AsiaNews.it
The chief executive officer of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) Tshering Sherpa stated,
“From higher camps, people tend to bring back oxygen bottles only.”
He further added,
“Other things like tents and cans and boxes of packed foods and drinks are mostly left behind there, that is why we can see so much of waste piling up. Apart from the check point above the Khumbu Icefall, there is no monitoring of what climbers are doing”
SPCC only makes an estimation of the waste deposit each year so there is no exact data of the amount of rubbish being collected at present. However, some sources in 2020 estimated that 50 tonnes of solid waste might have piled up over the last 60 years.
Future Initiative to Maintain Harmony on Everest
Officials stated that in the near future climbers may need to pay $5,500 CAD as a non refundable clean up fee. A new checkpoint will be established at Camp Two and a couple of mountain rangers will be hired to survey and ensure if all the climbers bring their garbage back from the highest part of the mountain. Over the next five years the use of drones and ropeways will be executed along with the pilot testing of a GPS tracking system will be carried out.The fee will also fund a five year clean up plan but the new rule will only be implemented if it gets parliament approval.
The Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee is currently working to control pollution in the Khumbu region. SPCC is collaborating with Khumbu Pasang Lhambhu Rural Municipality to make poop bags mandatory. Mountaineers get a poop bag at the base camp to use at higher altitudes from 2024 as there are no toilets available there. They are supposed to bring their bag along with them upon their return but the same rule does not exist for hikers who visit the Sagarmatha National Park.
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| Source: NBC News |
“Our mountains have started to stink. We get complaints that human feces are visible on the rocks and that some climbers are getting sick. This is not acceptable and is tarnishing our image.”
As per the government report 304 mountaineers died between 1923 and 2019 and more than 200 dead bodies are believed to remain frozen at the high altitude.
