Clean Mountain Campaign: 3,000 kg waste collected from Annapurna

As many as 3,600 kilograms of solid waste has been collected from Myagdi-based Annapurna First Mountain.

As part of a clean mountain campaign spearheaded by the Nepal Army, the waste was taken out from Mount Annapurna and its base camp.

The 8,071-meter high Mount Annapurna lies in Annapurna Rural Municipality-4, Narchyang of Myagdi.

Chief Administrative Officer of Annapurna Rural Municipality, Amrit Subedi informed the NA's mountain cleaning team that they had started cleaning up Mount Annapurna on last April 10 and returned on May 9.

A team comprising 10 NA personnel and 13 from Peak Promotion Travel Agency had collected wastes in the mountain and the base camp for 48 days.

NA mayor Gajendra Deuba had led the clean-up campaign. The team with Captain Bhim Bahadur Bhujel had reached atop the 8,091 meter high Annapurna peak and collected garbage there.

The waste collected include 1,200-kg biodegradable and 2,400-kg non-biodegradable, the team shared. The biodegradable waste has been managed at Bhusaket on the presence of the representatives of Annapurna Youth Club in Narchyang.

The non-biodegradable waste was taken to Dana of Myagdi via a helicopter belonging to the Prabhu Air.

The waste airlifted to Dana from the Annapurna Base Camp was then sent to Kathmandu-based NA headquarters in a truck, shared by Indra Siingh Sherchan, a local of Dana.

The 2,400-kg wastes including plastic, tin, iron and lead were sent to Kathmandu.

Clean-up was done in the Annapurna Mountain and its base camp after 72 years since mountaineering was permitted, said Chairperson of Village Conservation Area Management Committee, Narchyang, Tej Gurung.

"The waste was increasingly piling up in the mountain and base camp with the rise in the number of mountaineers and trekkers", he said, adding, 'The NA team cleaned up the Annapurna mountain for the first time'.

Pokhara metropolis had aided Rs 1.5 million to the NA for a clean mountain campaign. NA has conducted 'Clean Mountain Campaign-2023' in Mount Annapurna, Sagarmatha, Lhotse and Barunche peaks.

The 8,000-merter high Dhawalagiri and Manaslu mountains located in Gandaki province were cleaned earlier. The NA has placed the campaign realizing the waste dumped in the mountain caused environmental imbalance and imparted a wrong message.

The NA that started the campaign in 2019 had extracted 7,157 kilograms biodegradable waste from the Mount Everest, Lhotse, Manaslu and Kanchanjunga peaks last year.