Cleaning Up the World's Highest Junkyard
The temperature on Mount Everest often falls below freezing. Gusts of wind can reach over 100 miles per hour. The air at the top is too thin to breathe. Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world and one of the most difficult to climb. Hundreds of mountain climbers try to reach the top every year. They travel from around the world to the mountain, which lies between Nepal and Tibet. But making it up the mountain takes training, hard work, and some luck. The climbers who do reach the top find an amazing view. They also find something else along the way — trash!
Trash on the Mountain
Mount Everest is too tall to climb in one day. A climber’s body needs weeks to adjust to the height. Climbers bring tents and sleeping bags to set up camp along the way. They pack food and drinks. They carry oxygen bottles to help them breathe. But there are no trash cans. Climbers just leave their empty oxygen bottles, food wrappers, old tents, and other trash behind.
Trash on the mountain is not a new problem. Even Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first people to reach the top in 1953, admitted that he and his team left their trash behind. Thousands of climbers have been on the mountain in the 70 years since. Each climber makes about 18 pounds (or 8 kilograms) of trash, some of which they leave behind. Add it all up, and you’ll understand why some climbers call Mount Everest the world’s highest junkyard.
Why It’s a Problem
Trash doesn’t break down when the temperature is below freezing. Not even human waste breaks down. Snow and ice might hide some trash, but it’s still there. It reappears when the snow melts. Trash left years ago is being uncovered as climate change melts the ice.
Why does this matter? After all, no one lives on the mountain. But Mount Everest, which is covered by glaciers, is part of the Himalayas mountain range. Ten major rivers begin in the Himalayas. Some are fed by the water from Everest’s ice and snow. These rivers supply more than a billion people with drinking water. Trash and waste from the mountain ends up in the water. Garbage on Mount Everest is more than just ugly. It harms the health of the people and animals who depend on its water.
Cleaning Up Everest
Dawa Steven Sherpa is a mountain climber who wanted to do something about the trash. It cost too much for him to pay a big team to clean up Everest, so he came up with another plan. He saw climbers carrying supplies up the mountain. But when they came back down, they weren’t carrying anything. He explained in a TED talk that he went to climbers and said, “You’re coming down empty anyway. If you see any garbage on the way, put it in your backpack. Bring it to me; I’ll weigh it. For each kilo, I’ll give you a dollar.” In the first six years, his program collected 33,000 pounds (15,000 kilograms) of trash. That’s more than 16 tons!
Dawa Steven isn’t alone. Other groups have formed to help clean up the mountain. The government of Nepal now charges climbers a $4000 garbage fee before they climb. They get their money back if they bring all their trash down with them. In 2022, climbers returned about 75,000 pounds (34,000 kilograms) of garbage. Thanks to people like Dawa Steven, Everest is on its way to being cleaned up. “The world is full of problems,” Dawa Steven said in his TED talk. “I believe that problems are just opportunities for us to change the world.”