- Climbers with pressing needs on Mount Everest will soon find an “eco-friendly” toilet at a Chinese campsite 7,028 metres (23,058 feet) above sea level in an ongoing campaign to deal with the peak’s waste problem.
- Decades of commercial mountaineering have turned Mount Everest into the world’s highest rubbish dump as an increasing number of big-spending mountaineers pay little attention to the ugly footprint they leave behind.
- Fluorescent tents, discarded climbing equipment, empty gas canisters and even human excrement pollute the well-trodden route to the summit of the 8,848-metre peak.
- 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 brought down the mountain.
- Similar facilities have been installed at lower camps, including at the 5,200-metre north base camp, in previous years.
- The waste from the base camp is taken away daily and is provided to local farmers to use as fertiliser.
- The temporary toilets will be removed at the end of the climbing season.
- Governments on both sides of the mountain have been battling the human waste and trash left by an increasing number of climbers.
- In February, China banned non-climbers from accessing its Everest base camp in Tibet in an attempt to clean up its side of the mountain.
