Mount Everest’s Trash-Covered Slopes

 Human waste, empty oxygen cylinders, kitchen leftovers and discarded ladders.

Sherpas working on Mount Everest carry all that and more — 20 kilograms (44 pounds) per person — navigating a four-hour hike that traverses crumbling glacial ice and treacherous crevasses to bring trash back to base camp.

During the most recent climbing season, they had new assistance from two giant SZ DJI Technology Co. drones, which can complete the same journey in six minutes, sharing the task of clearing an expanding volume of refuse piling up on the world’s highest peak.

The accident highlighted the need for specialized insurance before expanding the project, according to Tshering Sherpa, SPCC’s chief executive officer. Such policies are not currently readily available and “if we don’t have any insurance, it is a very high-risk project.”

Drones have been deployed to haul garbage from Everest’s Camp 1, which sits at 6,065 meters (19,898 feet) above sea level down to base camp, about 700 meters below. After a DJI FlyCart 30 delivers supplies like ropes and ladders up the peak, Sherpas hook on a debris-filled garbage bag for the drone’s return journey as it buzzes down the mountain, sounding like an oversized mosquito.

Between mid-April and mid-May, the drones operated by Nepal-based firm Airlift Technology handled more than 280 kilograms of refuse, according to the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), a local non-profit that manages trash collection on Everest.

The drones are part of a growing effort to clean the slopes of the mountain, which has become so trash-strewn, it’s been referred to as the “world’s highest garbage dump.” Enlisting robots can help not only speed up the process but also reduce the danger for the Sherpas carrying decades-worth of garbage down the treacherous peak.

“We’re very happy,” said Lhakpa Nuru Sherpa, a 33-year-old Sherpa at local expeditions firm Asian Trekking who has reached the summit of Everest 15 times. He estimates that about 70% of the garbage usually carted off the mountain by his team was transported by drone this year.

“When you’re coming down from Camp 1 and it’s warm, you can smell the garbage,” and that has caused respiratory problems for some Sherpas, he said. “We want more drones carrying heavier weights.”

The 8,849-meter Everest has seen an influx of trash since the 1990s, when visiting grew in popularity following multiple successful summit attempts. During climbing season, which typically lasts from late April until the end of May, tens of thousands of people trek to base camp, though only hundreds attempt to reach the top of the peak each year.