Mount Everest : The Peak Of Snow Or Waste?

Mount Everest has become world's highest landfill and if the dumping continues, the end of a heavenly beautiful place is not far.

While plastic has many valuable uses,accumulation ofplasticobjects in Earth'senvironmentadversely affectswildlife, naturalhabitats, and us, of course. Also, it is us who made plastic and are using it in our everyday life at great extent. Around the world, one million plastic drinking bottles are purchased every minute, while up to 5 trillion single-use plastic bags are used worldwide every year.Today, we produce about 300 million tonnes of plastic waste every year. That's nearly equivalent to the weight of entire human population!

The effect that human being is having on our planet is huge, we are generating pollutants and we have beenpolluting, disrupting, and destroying environments from the deepest part of the ocean to the tallest mountain for years.It feels terrible when we see even the Mount Everest, the highest peak of world is painted with plastic and human waste today which is mainly composed of leftover camping meals, beer and fuel cans! Some estimates put the amount of trash left on the mountain at about 120 tonnes every year.

The problem is significant. It is estimated that more than 4,000 people have climbed Mount Everest since Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay first reached the summit in 1953. Most of them in recent years, with about 800 new people getting to the top annually, and many more stopping at the base camp. This influx of tourists has turned the pollution on the mountain from a big problem into a huge one.

There are some policies in place to fight this. The Nepalese government takes a $4,000 rubbish deposit from each group of mountaineers before their climb. On the Tibetan side, your kit is weighed before and after your climb, and you are fined $100 for each kilogram (2.2 pounds)of weight your kit has lost on your return. Also, China is developing eco-friendly toilets set up to reduce the human waste on the peak. Since due to extremely low temperature, about -50° celcius, it is almost impossible for an organic waste to get decompose! Left aside plastic waste.

What goes up should come down. The trash problem around Everest might be enormous, but it's not hopeless. It is climber's duty toclean up after themselves, otherwise this will become a neverending cycle. There are several groups that focus on cleaning up after them for the last 25 years. Mount Everest has become world's highest landfill and if the dumping continues, the end of a heavenly beautiful place is not far.