Waste Management Outlook for Mountain Regions

CASE STUDY

From Poo to Biofuel: UIAA and the Mount Everest Biogas Project

The International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (UIAA) is the main governing body that represents and serves the mountaineering community worldwide. The UIAA’s Mountain Protection Commission agrees that there is an urgent need to engage with its own community on the issue of waste. The Commission, through the UIAA Mountain Protection Award, is helping to promote the work of projects dedicated to raising awareness of waste and providing solutions. One of the recipients of the award is the Mt. Everest Biogas Project. It addresses the issue of sustainable waste management and disposal of human waste generated by the climbing community, specifically in the Sagarmatha National Park and the village of Gorak Shep below Everest Base Camp. The project will adapt existing biogas digester technology that has been successfully implemented throughout Nepal, China, India and other countries, albeit at lower elevations and in warmer climates. To bring this technology to the extreme conditions of the upper Himalayas, the project will combine the basic design of a Nepalese biogas digester with a low technology, off-the-shelf, heating design that will allow the system to operate in colder

environments. It will provide communities in the region with a form of a clean-burning, renewable energy source, as well as nutrient-rich fertilizer and local employment. The project aims to substantially reduce the staggering 12,000 kg of solid human waste dumped at Gorak Shep every year, which includes human waste carried down from Everest Base Camp. Additional environmental benefits include a reduced reliance on open burning wood or yak dung for heating and the associated respiratory and ocular health risks; reductions in deforestation of the area’s limited forest resources; and a reduced risk of water contamination. Another innovation of the project is the establishment of a primary management and decision-making group in Gorak Shep, a committee of 5-6 teahouse owners. Upon project completion, the committee will assume ownership and responsibility for the long-term operation of the biogas reactor. If implemented successfully, hundreds of other locations could learn from the experience and benefit from high-altitude biogas digesters to improve the lives of local people and their environment by reducing pollution, deforestation, health risks and the costs of alternate fuel sources.

Tents at Mountain Everest base camp. Photo © iStock/iStock/Rafal Belzowski

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