A scheme to encourage climbers to bring their waste down from Mount Everest is being scrapped - with Nepalese authorities telling the BBC it has been a failure.

Climbers had been required to pay a deposit of $4,000 (£2964), which they would only get back if they brought at least 8kg (18lbs) of waste back down with them.

It was hoped it would begin to tackle the rubbish problem on the world’s highest peak, which is estimated to be covered in some 50 tonnes of waste.

But after 11 years - and with the rubbish still piling up - the scheme is being shelved because it “failed to show a tangible result”.

  • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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    24 hours ago

    hear me out.

    only rich dumbasses climb Everest. $4000 is just the fee to climb on top of the regular fee to them.

    instead of charging a fee, make it a requirement to return with x pounds of trash or face jail time.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      Raise the price to ONE MILLION DOLLARS, and then just have sherpas empty out the air tanks of everyone who goes there. We’ll have wealth inequality stamped out in a couple years.

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      Didn’t they make a rule that you have to climb one of the other large mountains before climbing Everest as well. So first you have to pay to fly to another country/continent and pay to climb there.

      • ameancow@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        You can pay your way to get whatever you want. Any rules or regulations are just speed-bumps to the wealthy.

        Honestly, at this point, it’s fine. Let them all all crowd that death mountain and die in herds, and in another 50 million years AI/alien archeologists studying the Himalayan meadows will dig down and find a layer of oxygen-tank iron and fossilized rich-people remains.