Cleaning up the mountains
After a day walking in the mountains?
These mountain climbers should get some education in how te keep the garbage out of the natural reserves: not a little, but 2.5 tons of garbage was collected only at Lenin Peak, according to the State Environmental Protection and Forestry agency.
Lenin Peak , or Ленин Чокусу in Kyrgiz, Пик Ленина in Russian or қуллаи Ленин in Tajik, is a huge mountain from 7,134 meters altitude.
The garbage was collected as a part of the Clean Mountains Campaign. “Lenin Peak is one of the most popular mountain peaks among climbers from around the world. The glacier was exposed to intensive human intervention during 50 years of its development. A lot of garbage lay along the track from Achyk-Tash to the peak,” press service said.
“Large garbage dumps appeared in several cracks of the glaciers. About 800 bags of wastes have been gathered at a height of 4200 and 5300 m and sent for burial to the Osh drill range,” the report said.
Except for the introduction of unwanted materials, there are other aspects involved as well. Garbage containing food may attract animals, for example bears, that may attack visitors, or disturb ecosystems by altering the food territories.
Digging holes for human excrements are ok, as long as you are aware of downstream impacts. Leaving your excrements or any bio-litter like shells etc in frozen state is no good idea: it can take ages to decompose. You may introduce diseases unknown to the local ecosystem.
Burning plastics is not done: paper or wood is ok to burn, but plastics should not be burnt due to the introduction of toxic gasses.
So next time if you go into the mountains, do not leave your trash…
