Kathmandu sources added that decades of commercial mountaineering have turned Mount Everest into the world's highest rubbish dump as an increasing number of big spending climbers pay little attention to the ugly footprint they leave behind. Fluorescent tents, discarded climbing equipment, empty gas canisters and even human excrement litter the well trodden route to the summit of the 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) peak.
Pemba Dorje Sherpa, who has summated Everest 18 times, told "The Mountain is carrying tonnes of waste. It is disgusting, an eyesore”. Meanwhile as the number of climbers on the mountain has soared at least 600 people have scaled the world's highest peak so far this year alone the problem has worsened.
Meanwhile, melting glaciers caused by global
warming are exposing trash that has accumulated on the mountain since Edmund Hillary
and Tenzing Norgay made the first successful summit 65 years ago. Further another
solution, believes Ang Tsering Sherpa, former president of the Nepal
Mountaineering Association, would be a dedicated rubbish collection team. Media
reports added and last month a 30 strong cleanup team retrieved 8.5 tonnes of
waste from the northern slopes.
