A man trying to solve the problem of waste on Everest

Volunteers from the number of engineers and architects want to solve the most unsolvable problem of Everest: remove the human waste dump

Climbing Everest is becoming easier. The best equipment, infrastructure, the help of tireless guides filled the mountain with courageous tourists. In 2016, there were more than 36,000 people , which is 34% more than arrived in 2015.

Increased interest in Mount Everest is profitable for Nepal. Each of the climbers spends from $ 30,000 to $ 100,000 for this enterprise, depending on the choice of licenses and accompanying. But more people means more waste, including human waste. Yes, yes - Kakahi. Many kakakh.

Every year, 12,000 kg of human excrement accumulates in the base camp of Mount Everest. There, they remain stinking in the blue barrels equipped with toilet seats, until the Sherpas ferry him to Gorakshep , the frozen bottom of the lake, which has become the specialized landfill of Everest. In 2014, the government of Nepal decided that climbers should leave the mountain with 8 kg of garbage or pay a fee of $ 4,000, but excess waste remains another problem.


Waste Porter Descends from Everest Base Camp


Garbage and waste on Everest

“It struck me emotionally,” Harry Porter told me [ Garry Porter; By the way, porter in English - porter / approx. trans. ], an experienced climber and retired Boeing engineer. “We were in the most amazing country in the world, passed this journey, and watched how they took our cacao. There’s some kind of imbalance, Porter adds. “And what is our farewell tribute to the people of Nepal?”


Harry porter on everest

Seven years ago, Porter decided to make kakah his problem, and became a co-founder of the " Biogas of Everest " project, relying on volunteers, engineers and architects working with the most intractable problem of the mountain. And the time for its solution has long come. In a 2012 study of two water sources near Gorakshep, conducted by the National Science Foundation, it was found that one of them does not meet the standards for drinking water of the World Health Organization.

"You can not dump the excrement in open pits near water sources, without waiting for the appearance of problems with the environment," - said Porter.

How do they plan to solve this problem? Turn all waste into energy using "biogas methane tank".

Methtankas do not represent something special, but they achieve their goals. “This is not some kind of new high tech,” Porter warned. It's just a tank filled with organic waste bacteria. They produce methane as a by-product of activity, as well as liquid fertilizer. This gas can be collected and used to feed everything from tea houses on Everest to laptops, because there is also Internet on Everest .


Image of methane tank for biogas production

Theoretically, Everest can be provided with uninterrupted pooled energy. But the mountain will not allow to do this too easily. For these bacteria to feel good and eat with appetite, they must be warm; they are active only at an ecosystem temperature of 20 to 30 ° C. In the base camp, located at an altitude of 5300 m above sea level, the temperature regularly drops to zero. Porter says methane tanks are used throughout Nepal, China and India, but not so high in the mountains. If this technology can be adapted for one of the most inhospitable climates in the world, it can also be applied to other mountains that are experiencing waste problems.

The team needed a way to keep the methantank warm around the clock and with the help of ready-made equipment, which can be purchased locally. Porter wants this project to be fully implemented in Nepal - right down to the last battery. “We want this project to be Nepali. We build it at our own expense and give them the keys to it, ”he told me.

The solution was a 8.5 kW solar battery, similar to the ones people put on their roofs , bought in Kathmandu. A solar panel connected to a 48 volt battery creates enough electricity to warm the methantank overnight.

“We are ready to test this scheme, the client is ready to participate in the project, but we need to raise money,” says Porter, although during our conversation he was not ready to estimate the cost of the project. The project is still in the prototype stage, but the team, working with Seattle and Kathmandu Universities, proved that the methane tank is able to work with human waste and produce methane, at least under optimal temperature conditions in the laboratory.

The team is already thinking about the following steps. Porter does not want to allow the use of fertilizer until he checks for the content of human pathogens - from norovirus to cholera. If the pathogens are able to survive in the methane tank, the fertilizer will not be safe to use when growing grain for human feed.


Owners of a tea house in Nepal

The Everest biogas project worked with two Nepalese organizations, the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee and the Sagarmatha Committee on the Management of the Buffer Zone of the National Park, to ensure that the installation scheme complies with the standards of these organizations and that the Nepalese workers can collect the installations.

"They said: Most of all we are interested in when you can already begin, because what the climbers do here is a lack of respect for the mountain," Porter added.

Some climbers believe that the mountain has recently evolved from a place of pilgrimage for adventure seekers to a tourist lure for the rich. But regardless of what Everest has become, its modern heritage has been built on the backs of often nameless and invisible sherpas. The Everest biogas project seems to be beginning to slowly pay this debt.

Porter’s respect for Everest is obvious, and he is confident that the project with biogas is a success. “How can we protect the mountain so that it is accessible to both my children and my children’s children?” Asks Porter. “For me, it's just a matter of the future.”