“Everest Green” successfully recovered 5 tons of waste from Everest

French association “Montagne et Partage” organized an ambitious Everest cleaning campaign dubbed “Everest Green”.  Their 40-day mission started on April 13 and ended on May 23 by recovering 5 tons of waste from the Everest between Base Camp (5300m) and the South Col (7906m). Montagne & Partage is a French association which aims to provide all forms of humanitarian aid to the needy people in mountain areas, in the fields of education, health, the environment, and economic development.  For them, the mountain represents one of the finest schools of life; that of humility and sharing, that of universal brotherhood Out of 5 tons, 2 tons were sent to Namche for incineration whereas 3 tons of recyclable waste is being brought to Kathmandu by road for further processing/treatment.  Amongst the waste that the group recovered, majority were aluminum, nylon cords, textiles, scrap waste, batteries, plastic objects etc.  Their project, which costs Euros 150,000.00, is entirely financed by “Montagne et Partage”’s own resources. Their project will be made a documentary. In honour of the expedition group and their efforts in helping clean Everest, the Ambassador of France, Yves Carmona hosted a reception at the Residence of France during which the expedition group talked about their project and also presented the Ambassador with a symbolic expedition flag. During the welcome remarks by the Ambassador, he recalled the common relationship between Nepal and France around mountains and highlighted the need to raise environmental awareness amongst the relevant stakeholders as a long-term solution. He said “a recent editorial in the Nepalese press stressed the concerns: tons of human excreta carelessly dumped, tons of garbage of all kinds. Since 2014, the law obliges climbers to bring back at least 8 kg of rubbish and it remains to be assessed yet how far that rule is respected, and how and where the rubbish is recycled. So the initiative of “Everest green” is highly commendable and I do hope it will increase the awareness of unchecked pollution generated by the increasing flow of tourists on the roof of the world.”