Implement the plan

Restoring Everest’s sanctity calls for a balance between profit-making and preserving its fragile ecosystem.

While the 8848.86-metre Mt Everest is renowned as the Earth’s highest peak above sea level, the mountain is these days also notorious for the waste it carries. Since Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and Edmund Hillary first ascended Everest in 1953, almost 9,000 mountaineers have followed in their footsteps. The hordes of climbers scaling Everest are rising each year, and so is the litter they leave behind. As a result, discarded oxygen cylinders, plastic, abandoned tents and ropes, food cans, kitchen waste, water bottles and even human waste pollute the area, with the higher camps faring the worst. In spring 2024 alone, the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) collected 88 tonnes of waste from the Everest Base Camp (77 tonnes) and higher camps (8 tonnes). This has jeopardised the sanctity of the Everest region, caused environmental damage and affected thousands of people living downstream.