This woman removed tons of trash from Everest

Brut America

She climbed Mount Everest three times, but she’s accomplished another feat: removing several tons of trash from its Tibetan side. Brut nature met Marion Chaygneaud-Dupuy.

Transcript

00:00In 2018, I was told that I broke the record of the first European woman to have climbed the Everest three times.

00:14During my first expedition to the top, I explored the whole area around the advanced base camp and I realized that it was like a discharge.

00:24It's canned food, bokos, toothpaste tubes, tent towels.

00:32In 2018, I was told that I broke the record of the first European woman to have climbed the Everest three times.

00:37During my first expedition to the top, I explored the whole area around the advanced base camp and I realized that it was like a discharge.

00:41During my first expedition to the top, I explored the whole area around the advanced base camp and I realized that it was like a discharge.

00:46At camp 3, we are at 8,300 meters.

00:49So this is really what we call the dead zone.

00:51That is to say that there is no room for life at all.

00:54If we stay in this area for too long, we die.

00:57This is where the waste is left the most abundantly because in the end, there is this urgency to go up or down.

01:03So there is no longer any awareness of respect for this place.

01:10In total, on the six camps to climb to the top of Everest, on the northern side, on the Tibetan side, there are 10 tons of waste.

01:27After four years in the monastery, I went to the other side of the Himalayan chain, to Tibet,

01:39where I became a project manager to help nomadic populations in Tibet.

01:47I didn't expect to end up on the slopes of Everest to go to the top.

01:54I was already a guide since 2011-2012, I had been to the advanced camp on Everest.

02:01It was not at all a goal to go up there.

02:05And then in 2012, the company of the guides, a private company that deals with Chinese expeditions on Everest,

02:15asked me to go to the top to really understand why people leave the waste at this altitude

02:22and why it is so difficult for the mountain professionals who are there to supervise these expeditions

02:28to find a system to bring them back down.

02:41Just before taking these last steps to get to the top, which is of course completely gray,

02:46to see the end of the ascent appear very soon.

02:50It's extremely bright, it's very, very spacious.

02:53And then just below us, there is a sea of summits all around the massif of Everest.

02:59It's absolutely beautiful, each summit has a story, a name, I know them, I'm even sure I've climbed them.

03:20Everest, China

03:28More and more tourists come just to reach the top,

03:32without really taking into account the importance of keeping the mountain clean and pure.

03:40The flow of waste was like a tear that polluted the mountain.

03:44And it was through this same wound in myself that I felt the motivation to take action.

03:53Everest, China

04:11Once the bags have been brought down by the yaks to the base camp,

04:15there are trucks that come to pick up these bags and bring them in the different discharges

04:19for recyclable waste and non-recyclable waste.

04:24All this infrastructure, this coordination, it motivated the troops,

04:28which meant that there were not only the mountain professionals who were there to mobilize to pick up the waste,

04:33but there were also all the mountaineers from the different expeditions from the different countries.

04:41A major challenge to overcome was the collection of waste at very high altitudes.

04:48As there were only the mountain professionals, the Sherpas, the Tibetans or the Nepalese,

04:52who could go and collect this waste,

04:54we felt that it was essential to pay for this work.

04:59So we set up a program called Cash for Trash,

05:03where every kilo of trash is paid in local currency.

05:18Everest, China

05:26We had to start by making a chart of principles based on the Tibetan ecological consciousness,

05:34which was already there.

05:35We had to set up an infrastructure with deposit areas of different waste,

05:41recyclable and non-recyclable,

05:42so that continuously, when the expeditions come,

05:45they can deposit their bags of waste as they produce them.

05:50So we count the number of waste that has been reduced by the expedition.

05:54Each mountaineer must reduce at least 8 kilos of waste.

05:58And if the travel agencies do not play the game of reducing their waste,

06:03they are simply stripped of the list of agencies for the following year.

06:09It looks really beautiful.

06:10Yeah.

06:13For me, it was also getting out of isolation.

06:16I thought that the spiritual path led me to stay alone,

06:20in retirement, in caves, or even in my tent on the mountain.

06:24But in the end, this idea of being isolated is really dissolved.

06:28And it is dissolved in a much broader consciousness

06:31of being interdependent with everything that surrounds me.

06:34Thank you for being the actors in my movie.

06:43THE ECHOLABEL

06:51Today, I am bringing down this echolabel, Clean Everest,

06:55to all the plains of Tibet,

06:57not only to clean the glaciers,

07:00but also to keep the water sources in the plain clean.

07:05THE ECHOLABEL

07:10In Tibetan, the Everest is called Jomolangma.

07:13Jomolangma is the goddess mother elephant,

07:15who protects the world and protects humans and animals.

07:20Those who live as mountain guides

07:22have a salary thanks to Jomolangma.

07:26It's like this breathing between receiving from the mountain

07:30and giving in exchange.

07:32Giving what?

07:33Giving back its purity, its beauty.

07:36That's what this sacred relationship with the mountain is about.

07:39It's about understanding that there are always balances to be respected.

07:42You can't take everything,

07:43you have to give back at some point to take care of it again.

07:47THE ECHOLABEL

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