First ever Mount Everest clean up drive reveals a lot of secrets

The world’s most renowned mountain peak is showing its signs of depletion. Since it was first successfully topped in 1953, Mount Everest has become a sought-after destination for international adventurous climbers. Each spring, hundreds flock to the slopes of the nearly 30,000-foot mountain.

The problem is what they leave behind — tons of garbage and human waste that have earned the natural wonder the distinction as the world’s highest garbage dump.”

A Nepalese government expedition reportedly removed more than 24,000 pounds of garbage and four dead bodies from Mount Everest

Climbers returning from the 8850-metre mountain say its slopes are littered with human excrement, used oxygen bottles, torn tents, broken ladders, cans and plastic wrappers left behind. An embarrassment for the country who earns valuable revenue from mountain expeditions.

Some of the garbage was flown to Kathmandu and handed over to recyclers in a ceremony Wednesday officially concluding the cleaning campaign. Officials called it a successful mission but said more trash still needs to be collected. Some is covered by snow and is exposed only when temperatures rise.

As the glacier loss is escalating before global warming, it has been revealing rubbish which have been buried under the snow over decades of mountaineering by climbers who pay little attention to what they leave behind.

Dandu Raj Ghimire, director general of Department of Tourism said the four bodies were exposed by melting snow and were carried to base camp and then flown to a hospital in Kathmandu for identification. Climbers struggling to make it down the mountain alive sometimes are unable to carry out the bodies of teammates who have died. However, Nepal is considering tightening access to mt. Everest. “We are looking into having a minimum requirement for climbers, fixing more ropes or taking more oxygen and Sherpas”, said Mohan Krishna Sapkota, secretary at Nepal’s tourism ministry.

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