In 2014, the government of Nepal began requiring every mountaineer who climbs above the Everest base camp to bring back 18 pounds (8 kilograms) of solid waste from the mountain or forfeit a US$4,000 deposit. Of course, if you’ve paid $75,000 or more for the trip, losing the deposit may not be much of an incentive. Many people elect to forfeit it.

That seems like it’d create misincentives. Leave base camp carrying an extra 18 pounds of material, cache it shortly above base camp, pick it up on the way back.

A nonprofit called Sagarmatha Next, established in 2019, is working to promote sustainable tourism in the Khumbu region, partnering with companies and organizations from around the world. The group has raised awareness by producing art works and souvenirs from trash. It also launched a “Carry Me Back” program that encourages tourists to take two-pound (one-kilogram) bags of solid waste, such as shredded plastic bottles, to the airstrip at Lukla for processing and disposal in Kathmandu.

I’m not sure how much impact that’s going to have.

At the local government’s request, the University of Colorado Boulder developed a sustainable solid waste management plan in 2019 for the national park and buffer zone. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed implementation of the plan, which proposes creating a five-step process: waste segregation, collection, sorting and shredding, transfer to shipment stations and transportation to recycling facilities in Kathmandu.

That might mitigate some of the trash burning, but I don’t think that the core problem is really dealing with trash at the base camp, but the fact that littering happens above it.

In 2023, the organization presented a concept plan for a sustainable Everest base camp that would install technologies such as portable solar tents to reduce use of fossil fuel

I feel like this is kind of missing the point. Everest has a littering problem. But from a carbon dioxide emissions standpoint, the base camp at Everest is, globally, a minimal factor. Carbon dioxide is a global concern, and there are places to reduce carbon dioxide emissions that provide a much larger bang for the buck.

I feel like Nepal would do better to just charge a “garbage collection” tax and then allocate that however they see as most-efficient to removal.

I’m also not sure that packing the trash out on a human back is necessarily the most-efficient-way to move it out. The air is thin, harder for things to fly up there, but you can build things that fly up there. Here’s a modified DJI Mavic 3 drone flying over Everest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz9oI3B6v4c

It might be preferable to just reimburse people some amount if the trash they take in gets bagged in some kind of high-vis container with a radio beacon and attachment points. Then just let them leave it on the mountain, same as they had been, but prepared for transport. Have a fleet of high-powered, large quadcopters fly up and haul them out (on “trash pickup” days, to minimize exposure to people using the trail). Doesn’t need to be UAVs at the kind of price point that we’re talking about; can have humans pilot them remotely.

I mean, it’s 2024. Amazon has just finished their test “drone delivery” plan and is starting their broader drone delivery rollout. Heavier air cargo movement is a thing.