Nepal airline to clean up trail to Everest

KATHMANDU (Reuters Life!) - A Nepali private airline has volunteered to clear tonnes of empty beer bottles and cans from the trekking trail in Lukla which leads to the base camp of Mount Everest, a company official said on Wednesday.

Tens of thousands of trekkers and mountain climbers from around the world visit the scenic Khumbhu region every year, where the 8,850 meter (29,035 feet) highest mountain in the world is located.

"We hope to clean up to 17,000 kg of empty beer bottles from Lukla and surrounding areas as a campaign," said Vinaya Shakya, a senior official of the Yeti Airlines, a private carrier launching the drive this spring.

Tonnes of empty beer bottles, plastic packets and cans discarded by dozens of small hotels and visitors have littered Lukla, known as the gateway to Mount Everest.

"This has generated quite a bit of interest among the locals who will collect empty bottles and bring them to Lukla from where our planes will pick them up to Kathmandu," he said.

The bottles will be handed over to breweries for recycling and reusing them, officials said.

Lukla is a small resort clinging to a hillside, several days walk from the Everest base camp.

This month Nepal named the airport at Lukla after climbers Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, who first climbed the Everest summit in 1953, and later helped to build the airport.

Tenzing died in 1986 and Hillary passed away last month in New Zealand.

The airline said they were hoping the campaign would create more awareness among both the tourists and the locals about preserving and improving the ecological balance in the high Himalayas.

(Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Editing by Bappa Majumdar)