Everest has a poop problem. Now climbers have to bag it.

Climbers ascending Mount Everest will be expected to collect their poop in doggy bags and carry their waste back to base camp, according to new regulations from local officials as they attempt to address a long-festering littering problem on the world’s tallest peak.

Local officials with Khumbu Pasanglhamu Rural Municipality, the body that governs most of Everest, worked with the local waste management group Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee to procure thousands of bags for climbers and staff. According to Archana Ghimire, the environment officer with Khumba Pasanglhamu Rural Municipality, authorities have bags for an estimated 400 foreign climbers, 800 support staff and 300 rescue team members. Each person will receive three bags to reuse throughout the climb and dispose of at the end of their journey.

It takes typically two weeks or more to complete the summit after reaching base camp, where climbers will receive the bags.

Climbers trashing the mountain has been an issue for years. But as adventure tourism continues its boom, the mountain’s snowy slopes and ridges are increasingly piling up with human feces and other waste. According to the Sagarmathah Pollution Control Committee’s 2022 report, that spring climbers generated more than 35,000 pounds of poop on Mount Everest, Mount Lhotse and Mount Nuptse.

It’s a stinky side effect of a climbing industry that — beyond destroying the aesthetic beauty of the mountain — poses a risk to the health of the local population near the mountain’s base, and has resulted in increasingly deadly consequences for climbers and guides. Nepal issued a record 463 permits to climb Everest in the spring 2023 season.