In the previous post, Mount Everest was introduced as an area of tourist-induced environmental pollution. To further delve into the subject matter, this blog post will bring in the solutions and responses of the Nepalese government, evaluating their effectiveness in curbing the negative environmental impacts of climbing Mount Everest.

With reference to the previous post, the government has stepped up by implementing initiatives to combat the problem of waste and contaminants being discarded through banning single-use plastics in the region and asking for a 4000 dollar deposit, which would be returned if the climbers brought their waste back down with them (Napper et al., 2020). With these regulations implemented, the production and consumption of single-use plastics is curbed almost entirely, where the carbon emissions released to manufacture these single-use plastics are essentially curbed as well. Statistically, the plastic production to carbon dioxide release ratio is 1:5 , which essentially means that for every ton of single-use plastic produced, 5 tons of carbon emissions is released into the atmosphere (Ramsden, 2020). Furthermore, trekkers are deterred from leaving their waste on the mountain as well due to the financial costs of doing so. This illustrates a significant step towards sustainability in carbon emissions and discarded waste in Nepal by the Nepalese government.

However, one problem that was brought up in the previous post was the issue of microplastics. Though the above-mentioned regulations have tackled a bulk of the environmental pollution issues on Mount Everest, it does not overcome the problem of microplastics. Firstly, as microplastics particles are smaller than 5mm in size (Wu et al., 2016), they are too minute to be picked up and discarded by hand. Additionally, the microplastics discarded on the mountain also derive from the synthetic fibres of the equipment of the trekkers (Napper et al., 2020). Realistically, it is not feasible for the Nepalese government to place a ban on the climbers equipment nor would it be realistic for all trekkers to change their gear to made out of non-synthetic fibres due to the economical costs of these changes.

Ultimately, it does seem that the Nepalese government are ensuring environmental sustainability for the future of Mount Everest and the local community residing there. Nonetheless, it is evident that there are certain elements of pollutants that are not as easily dealt with, of which the onus should be handed to the direct consumers themselves, the climbers to make that change.

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