People looking to climb Mount Everest will now have to carry poop bags on them to bring their waste back down to camp.
The tallest mountain in the world is estimated to have around 3 tons of poop laying between Camp One, at the bottom, and Camp Four, which is near the summit, according to BBC.
“Our mountains have begun to stink,” Mingma Sherpa, chairman of Pasang Lhamu rural municipality, told the BBC.
Due to extreme temperatures, especially near the top, human waste is not properly disposed of because it doesn’t fully degrade, causing some climbers to fall sick.
“We are getting complaints that human stools are visible on rocks and some climbers are falling sick. This is not acceptable and erodes our image,” he said.
The new initiative will help keep the Chinese-Nepali mountain, as well as Mount Lhotse, cleaner and trill-seekers will have the option to buy poop bags at the base camp.
And if climbers think they can get around the initiative, they would be sorely mistaken as poop bags will be “check upon return,” he said.
As of now, many climbers dig holes in the snow to relieve themselves, but as they get closer to the summit, less snow is available to cover their waste, forcing them to go out in the open.
Add on top that it takes an average of seven to nine weeks to even scale the mountain, most aren’t too thrilled to carry about bags of poops.
“Waste remains a major issue, especially in higher-up camps where you can’t reach,” Chhiring Sherpa, the CEO of Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), told BBC.
Half of the stool samples are believed to be in South Col, also known as Camp Four.
SPCC is now obtaining around 8,000 waste bags from the US, which should help 1,200 people this coming climbing season, which begins in March.
The bags will contain a powder that helps solidify human waste and help make it odorless, BBC reported.
Each bag can be used five or six times, Chhiring predicts, and each climber will need about two bags each.
Poop bags aren’t a new concept for climbers as mountaineers have using them on Mount Denali, the highest peak in North America, and in the Antarctic for a while, according to the report.
