Do people have no respect for our places of outstanding beauty?
Posted on 1st June 2023 at 15:33
In a frightening video, the massive waste piles that have transformed the Himalayas into a massive garbage dump are revealed. Climbers leave tonnes of trash behind.
The waste was discovered on Makalu, the world's fifth highest mountain summit
A conservationist on a campaign to clean up the Himalayan mountain range claims that mountaineers have converted the mountain range into a "gigantic garbage bin."
According to The Times, Luc Boisnard, 53, claimed that climbers also dropped trash into glaciers from where it would "re-emerge in 200 years."
Following a previous expedition in 2010 to remove a tonne of waste from Everest, the alpinist, who was a member of an expedition that cleared out 3.7 tonnes of waste off Makalu, the fifth-highest summit in the world, and Annapurna, the tenth-highest, founded Himalayan Clean-Up, a community clean up campaign to raise awareness about Himalayan pollution.
Boisnard and his crew can be seen trekking through piles of trash, including plastic bottles, sanitary pads, and broken tents, in footage from the expedition.
There are numerous oxygen bottles, tins, canvases, and shoes hidden behind every rock. The Frenchman remarked, "It's really disgusting," noting that plastic made up 45% of the debris.
To collect the trash, Boisnard had been ascending Makalu, a mountain 12 miles southeast of Mount Everest in the Mahalangur Himalayas, with ten sherpas, two Nepalese high-altitude specialists, and five chefs. However, he was forced to abandon the expedition after contracting a lung infection.
It follows the adoption of a rule by the Nepalese government in 2014 requiring climbers to leave a "garbage deposit" before beginning their ascents.
The cost is 396,300 Nepalese rupees (£2428) for other summits higher than 26,250 feet, and 528,000 Nepalese rupees (£3238) for Everest.
The fee is returned if climbers carry down the 8kg of garbage they generate.
However, detractors claim that the plan is ineffectual.
Garbage Deposit Scheme (GDS) 'has not met the stated objectives in garbage management, primarily because of its poor degree of acceptance among stakeholders and low level of government support,' according to Tsewang Nuru Sherpa, citing a 2022 analysis by Lincoln University.
Nirmal Purja, a mountaineer from Nepal, is raising awareness about the pollution problem in the Himalayas. Nirmal Purja is featured in the Netflix documentary 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible, which follows his attempt to clean every peak higher than 8,000 metres (26,250 feet).
The project "has a zero-tolerance approach to the waste being generated by the increasingly popular expedition culture which is now having a negative impact upon those living in and around the mountains," according to Nimsdai's website.
Observers claim that the garbage is a byproduct of this "expedition culture," which involves about 600 individuals climbing Everest each year in addition to large numbers climbing other summits.
K2, the second-highest mountain in the world, was scaled by 145 mountaineers in just one day last year.
Bachendri Pal, the first Indian woman to summit Everest in 1984, has reacted to what she calls the mountain's growing commercialism, which she claims is attracting more and more wealthy but inexperienced climbers.
'Now, anyone who has the money is allowed to climb as though it's a tourist spot, with 600 people climbing every year. It's crazy,' she told The Times of India.
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