If you closed your eyes and tried to picture the very top of Mount Everest, there's a good chance that you'd imagine a pristine peak with jaw-dropping views of the landscape below. However, reality may look a little trashier than your imagination.
According to countless climbers who have managed to scale the world's tallest peak, its summit is littered with mounds of frozen trash. One Reddit post helped users visualize the growing concern of garbage atop the iconic mountain.
"Ever wonder what the top of Everest looks like?" asked the original poster.
In the post, you can see a selfie of a climber who is completely surrounded by mounds of discarded trash. From tents that have been left behind to broken equipment and even empty oxygen cylinders, there is an enormous amount of garbage that appears to have collected on the mountain over the years.
The trash on Mount Everest can pose a threat to the environment and the health of local communities through water contamination and plastic pollution. Melting glaciers can expose decades of waste that can eventually seep into the local watershed. This may taint the drinking water supply to thousands of people below the mountain.
While there have been efforts to organize cleanups of Mount Everest, it can often be easier said than done. It can be considered to be an amazing feat to simply climb to the top of the 29,032-foot mountain and make your way back down in one piece. The difficulty of accomplishing that milestone while also removing trash from the high-altitude, harsh environment presents an arduous challenge.
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In the comment section, several users shared their frustrations about the distressing, trash-filled sight.
"This is actually a huge problem. Honestly something needs to be done with how we're treating the mountain," vented one commenter.
"Gross, we just can't have nice things," quipped another user.
"People have managed to turn the top of the world into a garbage bin," wrote a third commenter.
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