Recently, a climber named Mingma shared a video on Instagram,
This is an image he took with the team of 53-year-old climber Luc Boisnard at a mountaineering camp in the Himalayas.
The Himalayas are remembered as a holy place.
But in the video, it's all garbage.
The tent is surrounded by garbage left behind by previous climbers, and you have to step on garbage when walking.
There is everything here, plastic bottles, oxygen cylinders, cans, clothes and shoes, sanitary napkins, abandoned tents, etc. and so much more...
Luc says trash can be seen next to almost every stone, and 45 percent is plastic.
Others throw trash into Himalayan glaciers that could reappear in 200 years.
Luc is not only a mountaineer, but also an environmentalist who is passionate about cleaning up mountain garbage.
He has participated in garbage removal around Makalu, the world's fifth highest peak, and Annapurna, the tenth highest peak (both of which belong to the Himalayas), removing a total of 3.7 tons of garbage.
He later founded an organization called Himalayan Clean-Up to raise awareness of the problem of waste pollution in the Himalayas.
He worked with 10 Sherpas, 2 Nepalese high-altitude experts and 5 cooks to clean up garbage on Makalu Peak, but had to give up halfway due to a lung infection and failed to complete the goal.
The knowledgeable Luc has seen many mountain camps polluted by garbage,
But the Himalayan camp surprised him, saying it had become "a giant trash can."
Mingma also said the camp in the Himalayas was "the dirtiest" camp he had ever seen.
A native of the Himalayas, he expressed indignation at the practice of many mountaineering teams throwing trash on high, hard-to-clean mountains.
Some teams try to avoid responsibility by cutting off the team logo before throwing garbage, and Mingma called on the government to find ways to punish this behavior.
Netizens were shocked when they saw the video of the camp, and they did not relent in criticism.
"It's disgusting, maybe every climber should pay a $100,000 cleanliness tax." This looks worse than venues after Glastonbury or Reading Leeds. ”
"Whatever they bring up, they should bring it back ... This practice of climbers is disgusting. ”
"It's a shame to destroy the environment while pursuing personal goals."
"Every climber should be ashamed."
"This is the best side of humanity! It's a shame. ”
In fact, garbage pollution in the Himalayas is no longer a problem for a day or two.
(Bags containing human excrement and everyday garbage)
According to statistics, about 600 people challenge Mount Everest each year, and many more climb other peaks in the Himalayas.
Now not only professional climbers, as long as there is money, anyone can try to climb, the Himalayas have almost become a tourist destination.
The more people come, the more garbage produced must also be, and garbage pollution becomes a side effect caused by "mountaineering fever".
Mountaineering is already a big challenge for many people, and carrying the garbage they produce down the mountain is a "burden".
So they chose the selfish way, throwing the garbage where it was and leaving the trouble to someone else.
(A Sherpa cleans up trash thrown by climbers on Mount Everest)
Cleaning up this garbage is difficult, but not just leaving it alone.
Much of the garbage moves through weathering, melting glaciers and rain, and eventually into rivers or oceans, causing water pollution.
Large amounts of solid waste and wastewater generated by climbers and tourists, such as medicines, batteries and hygiene products, can contain dangerous chemicals that can contaminate groundwater, streams, lakes and soil, posing health risks to residents in downstream areas.
In recent years, many people have been trying to solve the problem of garbage pollution in the Himalayas.
However, some have achieved little results, and some cannot fundamentally solve the problem.
In 2014, for example, Nepal introduced a decree requiring climbers to pay a "garbage deposit" before starting the climb.
The deposit for climbing Mount Everest is 528,000 Nepalese rupees (about 28,356 yuan), and the deposit for other peaks above 26,250 feet (equivalent to 8 kilometers) is 396,300 Nepalese rupees (about 21,283 yuan).
Each climber who climbs Mount Everest produces an average of 8 kilograms of garbage, most of which is discarded on the mountain.
If they can bring their trash with them when they go down the mountain, the deposit paid will be refunded.
This law sounds like a good idea, but in 2022, the University of Lincoln in New Zealand did a survey and found that the "garbage deposit scheme" did not work well.
The plan did not achieve the desired goals because it was less acceptable among stakeholders and the government's implementation support was not high.
Civil society organizations and individuals have also contributed to the environment of the Himalayas.
For example, Nirmal Purja, a mountaineer and advocate of the United Nations Environment Programme's mountain project,
In 2021, he and his team cleaned up 500 kilograms of garbage, including ropes and oxygen cylinders thrown by other climbers, on Manaslu, the eighth highest peak in the world, which belongs to the Himalayas.
In 2016, Indian Pradeep Sangwan founded an organization called Healing Himalayas to work with volunteers to clean up mountain garbage, using four to five pickup trucks a month to remove it.
By the end of 2020, they had removed more than 800 tonnes of garbage from the mountains of Himachal Pradesh in India, which is part of the Himalayas, equivalent to 4-5 times the weight of a blue whale.
Sangwan had been trying to clean up, but many climbers kept throwing it, which made him feel powerless.
He once posted a photo sitting in a garbage heap on social media, pessimistically,
"It takes a lifetime to clean up all the rubbish in the Himalayas."
As long as there are climbers throwing garbage, even if there are 100 or 1,000 environmentalists like Nirmal or Sangwan, the Himalayas will not always be clean.
When it comes to garbage pollution in the Himalayas, the formulation of relevant rules and the active activities of private people can only cure the symptoms.
To cure the root cause, it is up to climbers to improve their own environmental awareness.
It's just that this still seems too difficult for some people...