Three tonnes of rubbish collected from Everest

A dedicated clean-up team sent to Mount Everest has collected three tonnes of garbage in its first two weeks, officials said Wednesday, in an ambitious plan to clean the world's highest rubbish dump.
Decades of commercial mountaineering have left the pristine mountain polluted as an increasing number of big-spending climbers pay little attention to the ugly footprint they leave behind. 
Fluorescent tents, discarded climbing equipment, empty gas canisters and even human excrement litter the well-trodden route to the summit of the 8,848-metre peak.



 
As this year's spring climbing season kicked off last month, the Nepal government sent a 14-member team with a target to bring back 10,000 kilograms of trash from Everest within a month and a half. 
The team has collected and bundled the three tonnes of rubbish, including empty cans, bottles, plastic and discarded climbing gear from the base camp and surrounding areas bustling with climbers preparing and acclimatising to summit Everest.   
"The clean-up campaign team has just started and members have ascended to higher camps to collect more garbage," said Dandu Raj Ghimire, chief of Nepal's tourism department. 
An army helicopter...