Nepal is banning single-use plastic in the Everest region

Nepal is banning single-use plastic on and around Mount Everest in a bid to cut down on the region’s trash problem.

Nepalese authorities said they will ban plastic soft drink bottles and single-use plastics under 30 microns thick (0.0012 inches, or 0.03 millimeter) in the Khumbu region, which is home to Everest. The ban will prevent hikers from bringing the plastic goods in – and stop shops from selling them.

The rules won’t come into effect until January next year, and won’t apply to plastic water bottles, said Ganesh Ghimire, the chief administrative officer of Khumbu Pasang Lhamu rural municipality.

“We are consulting with all sides about what can be done about plastic water bottles,” he told CNN Thursday. “We will soon find a solution for that.”

This picture taken on May 21, 2018 shows discarded climbing equipment and rubbish scattered around Camp 4 of Mount Everest. -

The rules are aimed at reducing waste in the region, which is visited by 150,000 foreign and domestic tourists a year, according to Ghimire. Visitors to Everest trek through a number of villages before they start climbing the mountain itself, often leaving large amounts of trash behind them.

It’s a problem the Nepalese government and local communities have been wrestling with for years.

According to Ghimire, a similar ban was announced in 1999 but wasn’t implemented effectively. Officials are yet to decide on penalties for those who flout the ban.

In May 2019, a 14-member team of volunteers recovered more than three metric tons (6,613 pounds) of trash from the mountain, including empty cans, bottles, plastic and discarded climbing gear.

What do you do when nature calls and you're climbing Everest? Digging a hole in the snow is out of the question, although this does happen at some of the camps, explains former climber and engineer, Garry Porter.

Higher up the mountain where facilities are scarce, climbers are encouraged to deposit their bodily waste in disposable bags and bring it back down with them, explains adventurer Ben Fogle, pictured alongside a makeshift toilet in a tent.

But at base camp, Nepalese authorities have installed portable toilets in the form of blue barrels. According to Fogle, the rule at base camp is to not mix urine with feces. The blue barrels are solely for solid human waste.

Local porters working on Everest lug the barrels down from base camp to Gorak Shep, a frozen lakebed 17,000 feet above sea level.

Here the waste is dumped in open pits.

But poop does not decompose at altitude in sub-zero temperatures. Instead it dries up and shrivels, releasing harmful gases, explains Porter.

It can also potentially leak into the water supply system, he adds.

To address the issue, Porter began working on a biogas digester that can operate in Everest's harsh climate.

Once operational, the digester will convert human waste to methane gas, which can be used for cooking or lighting, and effluent that can potentially be used as fertilizer for crops.

But the living microorganisms in the digester need to be kept warm to break the waste down. Porter and his team plan to use solar power to heat the digester.

Researchers from Seattle and Kathmandu University have conducted several tests to see if the technology works. Porter estimates the first digester will cost around $500,000 to construct.

What happens to poop on Everest?

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Other issues on Everest

But trash isn’t the only problem facing Everest.

In May, a viral photo showed a long line of climbers stretching to the summit, raising concerns that overcrowding at the summit could have led to deaths of some climbers.

Most people can only spend a matter of minutes at the summit without extra oxygen supplies, and the area where mountaineers have been delayed is known as the “death zone.”

The death toll for the Spring 2019 climbing season reached 11, including nine on the Nepali side and two on the Tibetan side. In 2018, five people died on the Nepali side of Everest.

Nepal’s top tourism body maintains this year’s deaths were due to extreme physical weakness, weather adversity, high altitude sickness and accident – and not the overcrowding.

However, a five-member committee was formed to look into problems at the summit – and earlier this month, it recommended tightening the permit rules so that only experienced climbers will be able to hike to the top of Everest.

Those new recommendations are still under consideration, although they are expected to be implemented by the end of this year, ahead of the Spring climbing season in May 2020.