Nepal to turn Everest trash into art to highlight its garbage blight

KATHMANDU: Trash collected from Mount Everest is set to be transformed into art and displayed in a nearby gallery, to highlight the need to save the world’s tallest mountain from turning into a dumping site.

Used oxygen bottles, torn tents, ropes, broken ladders, cans and plastic wrappers discarded by climbers and trekkers litter the 8,848.86 metre tall peak and the surrounding areas.

Tommy Gustafsson, project director and a co-founder of the Sagarmatha Next Centre - a visitors’ information centre and waste up-cycling facility - said foreign and local artists will be engaged in creating artwork from waste materials and train locals to turn trash into treasures. “We want to showcase how you can transform solid waste to precious pieces of art … and generate employment and income,” Gustafsson said,

The Centre is located at an altitude of 3,780 metres at Syangboche on the main trail to Everest base camp, two days’ walk from Lukla, the gateway to the mountain.

Products and artwork will be displayed to raise environmental awareness, or sold as souvenirs with the proceeds going to conservation of the region, he said.

Trash brought down from the mountain or collected from households and tea houses along the trail is handled and segregated by a local environmental group, the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, but the task in a remote region that has no roads is a huge challenge.

Phinjo Sherpa, of the Eco Himal group involved in the scheme, said under a “carry me back” initiative, each returning tourist and guide will be requested to take a bag containing one kilogram of garbage back to Lukla airport, from where the trash will be airlifted to Kathmandu.