It is estimated that there are around 50 tons of waste on Mount Everest.Image: www.imago-images.de
Nepal wanted to use a depot system to curb litter on Mount Everest. Now it’s clear: It doesn’t work and is therefore being discontinued.
December 31, 2025, 07:56December 31, 2025, 08:18
Since 2014, Everest mountaineers have had to deposit $4,000 as a kind of deposit when they set out to climb the highest peak on earth. They only received the money back if they carried at least eight kilograms of waste into the valley.
After eleven years, the concept is now being discontinued, as the Nepalese tourism director Himal Gautam told the BBC confirmed. The system has proven to be ineffective: on the one hand, the garbage problem has not disappeared, nor have mountaineers been fined for leaving their waste behind.
The climbing tourists have found a simple way to present the necessary eight kilograms of waste to the depot in the valley: they simply take more waste with them from lower-lying camps. This meant that they were able to leave their other legacies in the high mountain regions as before.
This is exactly where the garbage problem is greatest. According to Tshering Sherpa, a head of a checkpoint on the mountain, mountaineers “usually only bring oxygen bottles with them from higher camps.”
“Other things like tents, cans and boxes with packaged food and drinks are usually left there, which is why we see so much rubbish lying around.”
50 tons of rubbish are said to be lying around on Mount Everest: workers empty a bag with collected rubbish. (archive image)Image: www.imago-images.de
According to Sherpa’s estimate, the average Everest tourist produces around twelve kilograms of waste during their Himalayan trip, which can last up to six weeks depending on the acclimatization period. For this reason alone, the rule of taking eight kilograms of rubbish away is “incorrect”.
Because of this, and because of the lack of effectiveness of the system, it has become an “administrative burden,” says tourism director Gautam. That’s why they decided to discontinue it.
A waste depot beneath Mount Everest.Image: www.imago-images.de
The authorities are now looking for new ways to deal with the waste scourge. The biggest problem is that monitoring the mountaineers is very difficult. There is currently only one checkpoint in a high area. Apart from this, you cannot monitor what the climbers are doing on the mountain.
Suffers from the waste problem: Mount Everest.Image: www.imago-images.de
A proposal for more effective waste control in the future, which the Nepalese parliament is currently considering, is the introduction of a fixed waste fee. The $4,000 should therefore be paid in the future and no longer refunded. The money could then be invested in additional checkpoints and patrols by local Sherpas who could better monitor the summiteers. Local politicians have been calling for such a solution for a long time.
The waste problem on Mount Everest is notorious. The highest mountain in the world also attracts many adventurers who do not have the experience of skilled mountaineers. Climbing Everest was commercialized in the 1990s, and now over 1,000 climbers attempt the mountain every year. The costs are significant and can total $100,000 or more depending on the support you receive.
In addition to mass tourism, the extreme cold on the mountain and the extreme conditions for clean-up operations, for example, also play a role in the waste problem. Due to the low temperatures, garbage hardly decomposes. Even corpses of failed mountaineers do not decay. Nepal recently unveiled a five-year plan to rid the Himalayan mountains of waste.