China Plans Eco Toilet on Mount Everest

Adventurers and climbers on Mount Everest, this season will find ‘eco-friendly’ toilets though at the Chinese campsite, which is 7,028 metres above the sea level. The eco-friendly toilets will be China’s contribution to the ongoing campaign to deal with the world’s highest peak’s waste problem.

Nearly seven decades of commercial mountaineering have turned Mount Everest into the world’s highest dumping ground as the increasing number of summiteers pay less attention to the waste they leave behind.

The waste that is comprising of fluorescent tents, empty gas cylinders, discarded climbing equipment and even human excrement, that pollutes the route, thereby polluting the environment and creating obstacles on the way to the summit of the 8,848-metre peak.

Therefore this climbing season a Chinese expedition company has come up with the proposal to put what they dubbed as “eco-friendly” loo at the higher campsite on the northern slope by the side of Tibet. The temporary toilets will be removed at the end of every climbing season.

Pema Tinley, deputy secretary general of the Tibet Mountaineering Association said, “The toilet makes it easy to collect human waste produced by the climbers as there is a barrel with rubbish bags underneath the toilet”. The waste will be collected and later brought down from the mountain.

In past few years, similar facilities have been installed at lower camps, including one at the 5,200 meter north base camp and the waste from the base camp is taken away daily and are provided to the local farmers, which they use as fertilizer in their farms.

For some years from now, governments on either side of the Mount Everest have been battling with the human waste and trash that are left by the growing number of climbers. In February this year in an attempt to check this problem, China also banned non-climbers from accessing the Everest base camp in Tibet in an attempt to clean up its side of the mountain.

On the other hand, the engineers in Nepal are considering a plan to install a biogas plant near the crowded southern base camp that would turn climber waste into useful fertilizer for the farmers. At present, Nepal carries the waste from the base camp to the next village, which is one hour walk away and dumped the waste into trenches which also increases the risk of contaminating the water down in the valley.