A scheme to encourage climbers to bring rubbish down from Mount Everest has been scrapped, after dishonest mountaineers found ways to cheat the system.
Introduced in 2014, the programme forced those scaling the mountain to pay a $4,000 (£2,964) deposit, which they only got back if they brought at least 18lbs (8kg) of rubbish back down with them.
It was hoped the scheme would help to clear up rubbish left by previous mountaineerers – including oxygen cylinders and human waste.
However, 11 years later, the rubbish problem has ‘not gone away’.
Climbers have been able to cheat the system by collecting rubbish from lower camps, rather than the higher camps where the majority of the waste lays.
Speaking to the BBC, Tshering Sherpa, chief executive officer of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), which runs an Everest checkpoint, explained: ‘From higher camps, people tend to bring back oxygen bottles only.
‘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.’
To understand the issue, this shocking map reveals the true scale of waste on Mount Everest.
Tourists coming to Mount Everest and the surrounding Sagarmatha National Park bring in an estimated 1,000 tonnes of waste each year, the majority of which never leaves the park
Climbers have been able to cheat the system by collecting rubbish from lower camps, rather than the higher camps where the majority of the waste lays. Pictured: a Nepalese sherpa collecting rubbish at an altitude of 8,000 metres
Mount Everest sits within the Sagamartha National Park in the Khumbu region of Nepal.
The number of tourists visiting the park has been steadily increasing for years but has recently accelerated, doubling in the three years between 2014 and 2017.
While these tourists bring in millions for the Nepalese Government and the local economy, they also bring in vast amounts of waste.
Every year shocking images show camps littered with tattered tents, abandoned gear, and human waste.
The SPCC only records how much waste is collected each year, and so there are no official estimates for the amount of rubbish currently on the mountain.
But, a 2020 paper predicted that there may be 50 tonnes of solid waste left on Everest in the last 60 years.
Additionally, in 2022 the Nepalese Army reported that it had removed around 34 tonnes of waste from Everest and the surrounding mountains, up from 27.6 tonnes in 2021.
In a bid to tackle this growing issue, the rubbish collection scheme was introduced in 2014, and applied to climbers ascending beyond Everest’s base camp.
In the Spring climbing season of 2023 alone, 75 tonnes of rubbish was collected from Everest base camp including 21.5 tonnes of human waste which was dumped in nearby pits
A 2020 paper predicted that there may be 50 tonnes of solid waste left on Everest in the last 60 years. Pictured: rubbish scattered around Camp 4 of Mount Everest
Speaking at the time, tourism ministry official Madhusudan Burlakoti said authorities would take legal action against climbers who failed to comply with the rule.
‘The government has decided in order to clean up Mount Everest that each member of an expedition must bring back at least eight kilos of garbage, apart from their own trash’, he said.
According to Nepalese authorities, most of the deposit money was refunded to climbers over the 11–year programme.
However, while climbers would bring back the required 8kg, they actually accumulated far more themselves.
According to Mr Sherpa, the average climber produces up to 12kg (26lbs) of waste during their six weeks of acclimatisation and climbing.
What’s more, at the higher camps, there were no authorities monitoring what climbers were doing – or what rubbish they were discarding.
‘Apart from the check point above the Khumbu Icefall, there is no monitoring of what climbers are doing,’ he explained.
To combat this issue once and for all, officials are now introducing a new rule for climbers – a non–refundable clean–up fee of around $4,000 (£2,964).
This will be used to set up a checkpoint at Camp Two, and to deploy mountain rangers who will venture further up the mountain to monitor rubbish collection.
Speaking to the BBC, Mingma Sherpa, chairperson of the Pasang Lhamu rural municipality, explained that the Sherpa community has been calling for this change for yeras.
‘We had been questioning the effectiveness of the deposit scheme all this time because we are not aware of anyone who was penalised for not bringing their trash down,’ he said.
‘And there was no designated fund but now this non–refundable fee will lead to creation of a fund that can enable us to do all these clean–up and monitoring works.’
