On May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the 29 035-foot summit of Mt Everest.

Since then, thousands of people have followed their example. While they were at it, they contributed to ruining the mountain with tons of trash.

Aaaaand this is why we can’t have nice things.

Back in 2015, it was estimated that a crazy 12 tonnes of rubbish accumulated on the mountain per season. Four seasons later and the problem isn’t getting any better, which is why a dedicated team has been set up to try and remedy the problem.

Here’s TimesLIVE:

A dedicated clean-up team sent to Mt Everest has collected three tons of garbage in its first two weeks, officials said on Wednesday, in an ambitious plan to clean the world’s highest rubbish dump.

Decades of commercial mountaineering have left the pristine mountain polluted as an increasing number of big-spending climbers pay little attention to the ugly footprint they leave behind.

Amongst the rubbish, you’ll find everything from empty gas canisters to human excrement. Yep, poop freezes, so it hangs around.

“The clean-up campaign team has just started and members have ascended to higher camps to collect more garbage,” said Dandu Raj Ghimire, chief of Nepal’s tourism department.

An army helicopter transported a third of the collected trash to Kathmandu for recycling. The remaining biodegradable trash was taken to the neighbouring Okhaldhunga district for proper disposal.

Eight members are now cleaning Camp 2 at 6,400m and teams of three will take turns to go up to Camp 4 at 7,950m, where they will spend 15 days litter-picking on the snowy slopes.

“The clean-up campaign will be continued in the coming seasons as well to make the world’s tallest mountain clean. It is our responsibility to keep our mountains clean,” Ghimire said.

Governments on both sides of the mountain have been battling the piles of human waste and trash left behind by 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.

Over 4,000 people have climbed Everest so far, and last year saw a record 807 climbers reach the summit.

Melting glaciers caused by global warming are exposing trash and even bodies that have accumulated on the mountain since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made the first successful summit 66 years ago.

So if you’re planning to climb Everest, don’t be a dick. You can still talk at length about “overcoming”, “personal goals”, and “the feeling of reaching the top” without being a trash wizard.

Be better.

[source:timeslive]