Cleaning Up Mount Everest

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Since March, large numbers of visitors from China's national climbing team, the China Meteorological Bureau, and the China Space Technology group have flocked to Mount Everest's base camp to prepare for the delivery of the 2008 Olympic flame to the world’s highest peak. Their presence has expanded the number of visitors now living at base camp to more than 600, including foreign climbers, according to an official from the national climbing team.

With base camp itself accepting only scientists and climbers, most tourists to the area are concentrated several kilometers below, in tent communities known as "international hotels." Rongbuk Monastery, the world's highest monastery, also has a small tourist camp near the office of the local environmental protection bureau.

The daily trash, food waste, and human excrement generated by these thousands of temporary residents is a growing environmental problem. Currently, each tent collects its trash in a large wooden basket to be picked up by truck once a week and sent to a remote landfill. Most of the waste is not separated before collection, and non-biodegradable plastic bags are typically mixed in with food remains. Nearly every tent digs a hole outside as a natural toilet and later transports its human waste downhill, though leaching into the soil can happen easily due to poor preventative measures.

The lack of efficient waste treatment systems is not just an issue for Everest, but a bottleneck for some of Tibet's major cities. Lhasa, the region's capital, does not yet have a municipal wastewater treatment plant, though a new facility is slated to begin construction later this year. As a result, every day some 100,000 tons of wastewater flow directly into the Lhasa River through small channels and waterways. The old Lhasa landfill exceeded its capacity in 2002 and was converted into a park; a new and bigger plot has been built in Qushui County.

Pollutants emitted from vehicles and restaurants have become the main source of local air pollution. The roughly 1,000 taxis and 100,000 private cars moving around Lhasa mainly use gas and diesel, and only a few are fueled by CNG (compressed natural gas) or LPG (liquefied petroleum gas).

Sun Island on the Lhasa River has become a hot spot for real estate development, and rapidly growing construction has boosted the illegal mining of sand and stones from the waterway. And although the Lalu Wetland in Lhasa's north suburb is listed by the Chinese government as a national natural conservation area, daily wastewater and sewage from the nearby community is still discharged directly into the wetland, and large amounts of waste are piling up on the eastern side. Conservation of the wetland has not captured the attention of local residents or tourists, who rarely spend time there.

In recent years, Lhasa has built a large number of public toilets, set up garbage collection systems, and formed a network for water supply and sanitation, providing the necessary infrastructure for applying waste treatment technologies. But the high altitude of this plateau city has made the operation of conventional wastewater treatment difficult.

In addition to creating waste problems, unsustainable tourism development poses a challenge to the fragile Mount Everest ecosystem. Local souvenir items made from wild plants and animals, as well as fossils, have become extremely popular among tourists; exploitation of these precious natural resources has damaged the local ecosystem and geology. Many restaurants have also sprouted up around Mount Everest Natural Conservation Area, most of which serve wild animals and local stream fish to attract tourists.

Yongfeng Feng is an acclaimed editor and journalist at China Guangming Daily who reports and writes on science and technology issues. Outside contributions to China Watch reflect the views of the author and are not necessarily the views of the Worldwatch Institute.