TRASH TO TREASURE: ART TO SAVE MT EVEREST!

The icy gradients of Mt Everest have been burdened by tonnes of waste. Here’s how art provides solutions for environmental conservation in the Himalayas

- PRIYAMVADA RANA

In a flash of a second, Mount Everest brings in vignettes of heroic trekking, blizzards, pristine snow-covered mountains, billow of clouds and inevitably low oxygen levels in our mind. Altogether, it makes for a thrilling chase to fulfill the wildest of the dreams that only some can imagine. For others, we travel the icy gradients of the world’s highest mountain, through the lens of the arduous journey of hikers which portrays Everest as a gleaming white spotless beauty.

However, this unsullied ambience of Everest has been marred with tonnes of waste that humans leave behind on their tumultuous treks. To be precise, in 2019, around 60, 000 foreign visitors came leaving nearly 790kg of waste per day during the trekking season in Khumbu Valley of Nepal that shares the location of Everest on Nepalese side, as found by a study by Kathmandu University.