Mount Everest was for long regarded the world's highest garbage dump. In 2000 Junko Tabei, the first woman to scale the peak, had estimated that at least 290 tonnes of garbage were strewn along the mountain.

But conservation efforts in recent years are beginning to make the mountain clean again, even as Nepal prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first successful Everest climb. Currently, US and Nepali climbers are busy hauling down about 1,000 kilogrammes (kg) of rubbish from a camp set up at an altitude of 6,300 metres.