539
trail, a gauntlet of vendors hawking fake made-in-Bhutan products and garbagestrewn roads”
9
(One tourist operator’s opinion, of course.) (Fig. 57.2).
57.2 The Mount Everest Base Camp Syndrome
Much has been written and discussed regarding how it is that “waste confounds
modernist dreams of purification and asserts its place in space, society, and nature.”
10
In Nepal there is a saying, “You don’t need a map to get to the Everest base camp,
just follow the trash …,” which is now deemed a “60,000 pound” problem.
11
In
surveying waste sites around the world, Taktsang and Everest only rate, obviously,
because of their iconic stature and the blatant contradiction-in-terms. But humans
everywhere, and throughout our species’ history, have discarded unimaginable trillions of pounds of garbage, what contamination experts track in the form of “food
wastes, packaged goods, disposable goods, used electronics…demolition debris,
incineration residues, refinery sludges … municipal solid waste per person on a
daily basis” and so on.
12
One theory among many holds that garbage played a crucial role in the momentous evacuation of the spectacular and sacred Canyon de
9 Nikkei Asian Review. “Bhutan’s neighbors ‘undermining’ elite tourism strategy,” by Nidup
Gyeltshen and Phuntsho Wangdi, July 28, 2019, https://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Life/Bhutan-sneighbors-undermining-elite-tourism-strategy, Accessed May 30, 2020. Revenues from tourism to
Bhutan in 2018 were “USD 85.41 million”. See “Tourists Number Records Growth Of 7.61%:
Bhutan Tourism Monitor 2018, by Dechen Tshomo, Kuensel, April 8, 2019, https://www.dailybhutan.com/article/tourists-number-records-growth-of-761-bhutan-tourism-monitor-2018,
Accessed May 30, 2020. Bhutan’s total GNP for 2018 was 2.447 billion USD, with its primary
income deriving from timber, hydroelectricity and agriculture.
10 See “Geographies of waste: dispositions, transformations, contradictions,” by Kevin Martyn,
American Association of Geographers, Annual Meeting, 2019, https://aag.secure-abstracts.com/
AAG%20Annual%20Meeting%202019/sessions-gallery/23172, Accessed May 30, 2020.
11 “Mount Everest tackles 60,000-pound trash problem with campaign to clean up waste,” by
Dragana Jovanovic, ABC News, May 2, 2019, https://abcnews.go.com/International/mount-everest-tackles-60000-pound-trash-problem-campaign/story?id=62773297, Accessed May 30, 2020.
But of course, it is much more than mere “waste” that infiltrates the dream of Sagarmatha National
Park and its epicenter that is Everest. The mountain wildness, as debased and overrun with a theatrical, populist inanity -the tens-of-millions of wilderness tourists, expeditions out to conquer
something (half in love with themselves, half in love with oblivion, as the film’s Narration wends)
was acutely embodied in the recent documentary, “Mountain” narrated by Willem Dafoe from a
script by Robert Macfarlane, beautifully Directed by Jennifer Peedom, and premiering at the
Sydney Opera House in June 2017. See https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/mountainreview-1015413. See also, “Climbing Sacred, Secretive Peaks,” by Haley Littleton, March 1, 2017,
https://www.elevationoutdoors.com/go-outside/climbing-sacred-secretive-peaks/.
Accessed
August 8, 2020.
12 See EPA, “Report on the Environment – Wastes,” https://www.epa.gov/report-environment/
wastes, Accessed May 30, 2020; See also, Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD). 2015. Municipal waste, Generation and Treatment: Municipal waste generated per capita. OECD.StatExtracts.
57.2 The Mount Everest Base Camp Syndrome
trail, a gauntlet of vendors hawking fake made-in-Bhutan products and garbagestrewn roads”
9
(One tourist operator’s opinion, of course.) (Fig. 57.2).
57.2 The Mount Everest Base Camp Syndrome
Much has been written and discussed regarding how it is that “waste confounds
modernist dreams of purification and asserts its place in space, society, and nature.”
10
In Nepal there is a saying, “You don’t need a map to get to the Everest base camp,
just follow the trash …,” which is now deemed a “60,000 pound” problem.
11
In
surveying waste sites around the world, Taktsang and Everest only rate, obviously,
because of their iconic stature and the blatant contradiction-in-terms. But humans
everywhere, and throughout our species’ history, have discarded unimaginable trillions of pounds of garbage, what contamination experts track in the form of “food
wastes, packaged goods, disposable goods, used electronics…demolition debris,
incineration residues, refinery sludges … municipal solid waste per person on a
daily basis” and so on.
12
One theory among many holds that garbage played a crucial role in the momentous evacuation of the spectacular and sacred Canyon de
9 Nikkei Asian Review. “Bhutan’s neighbors ‘undermining’ elite tourism strategy,” by Nidup
Gyeltshen and Phuntsho Wangdi, July 28, 2019, https://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Life/Bhutan-sneighbors-undermining-elite-tourism-strategy, Accessed May 30, 2020. Revenues from tourism to
Bhutan in 2018 were “USD 85.41 million”. See “Tourists Number Records Growth Of 7.61%:
Bhutan Tourism Monitor 2018, by Dechen Tshomo, Kuensel, April 8, 2019, https://www.dailybhutan.com/article/tourists-number-records-growth-of-761-bhutan-tourism-monitor-2018,
Accessed May 30, 2020. Bhutan’s total GNP for 2018 was 2.447 billion USD, with its primary
income deriving from timber, hydroelectricity and agriculture.
10 See “Geographies of waste: dispositions, transformations, contradictions,” by Kevin Martyn,
American Association of Geographers, Annual Meeting, 2019, https://aag.secure-abstracts.com/
AAG%20Annual%20Meeting%202019/sessions-gallery/23172, Accessed May 30, 2020.
11 “Mount Everest tackles 60,000-pound trash problem with campaign to clean up waste,” by
Dragana Jovanovic, ABC News, May 2, 2019, https://abcnews.go.com/International/mount-everest-tackles-60000-pound-trash-problem-campaign/story?id=62773297, Accessed May 30, 2020.
But of course, it is much more than mere “waste” that infiltrates the dream of Sagarmatha National
Park and its epicenter that is Everest. The mountain wildness, as debased and overrun with a theatrical, populist inanity -the tens-of-millions of wilderness tourists, expeditions out to conquer
something (half in love with themselves, half in love with oblivion, as the film’s Narration wends)
was acutely embodied in the recent documentary, “Mountain” narrated by Willem Dafoe from a
script by Robert Macfarlane, beautifully Directed by Jennifer Peedom, and premiering at the
Sydney Opera House in June 2017. See https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/mountainreview-1015413. See also, “Climbing Sacred, Secretive Peaks,” by Haley Littleton, March 1, 2017,
https://www.elevationoutdoors.com/go-outside/climbing-sacred-secretive-peaks/.
Accessed
August 8, 2020.
12 See EPA, “Report on the Environment – Wastes,” https://www.epa.gov/report-environment/
wastes, Accessed May 30, 2020; See also, Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD). 2015. Municipal waste, Generation and Treatment: Municipal waste generated per capita. OECD.StatExtracts.
57.2 The Mount Everest Base Camp Syndrome