Mount Everest has a trash problem.
A clean-up team in Nepal recently picked up more than three tons of garbage from the area around the world’s highest peak, and they plan to grab a total of 11 tons in a 45 day cleaning initiative that started April 14, local media reported.
“Our goal is to extract as much waste as possible from Everest so as to restore glory to the mountain. Everest is not just the crown of the world, but our pride,” Dandu Raj Ghimire, Nepal’s tourism director, told reporters earlier this week in Kathmandu, according to the Hindu.
The country’s tourism department is teaming up with local government as well as mountaineering groups in a first of its kind effort to clean the mountain, according to the Himalayan Times.
Around 500 foreign climbers and 1,000 climbing support staff will make it to Everest’s higher camps this year, according to the tourism department. As they climb, mountaineers need large packs and often leave behind trash, both degradable and not.
Ghimire said the team would also bring down bodies of climbers who died trying to scale the peak. According to the Himalayan Times, four bodies were already found at the base camp.
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