The NeverRest Project was set up during the pandemic, bringing together the best talent in an international multidisciplinary team of top experts from a variety of fields, combining science, technology, engineering and creativity to provide environmental solutions.
The team consists of engineers, technology experts, biologists, specialists in climate change and professionals in mountaineering and Nepalese tourism, among others, all working together on different solutions and prototypes to clean up the world’s highest mountain after more than 40 years of commercial expeditions and waste dumping in the area.
Experts are also working on the planning and designing of a sustainable Base Camp to solve, definitively, the problem of waste management, while also benefiting the local population, both in the villages and among different agents of the high-altitude tourism industry.
The NeverRest Project’s team is working with HypeloopTT’s innovative technology, Lucy. This is an online work management platform, supported by artificial intelligence and international in its scope, which helps coordinate teams, put specialists in contact with one another to solve problems, and compile the progress of each expert in the project.
Environmental Scientists
Due to the disparity of data on residues in the Everest and its surroundings, the environmental team is in charge of making several environmental impact studies at Mount Everest.
The team is led by professor Sérgio Henrique Faria, climate change expert in the fields of ice, glaciers, and high-altitude mountain environments; by María José Sanz Sánchez, expert in terrestrial ecosystems, environmental pollution and climate change, as well as one of the receivers of the Nobel Peace Prize for the IPCC; and by biologist María Urieta, territorial planification and environmental management expert.
Sérgio Henrique Faria states that ‘Two studies will be carried out, one at summer and the other at winter, in order to better our understanding of the environmental impact and effects of human residues in the mountain. At summer, when there is little to no snow, we can better observe impact on soil and ecosystems, as well as having better access to residues previously stuck on ice. At winter, we will analyze the snow, which will provide us with a registry of aerial pollution and trapped aerosols. Through these, we can recreate the history of local and far-away atmospheric pollution sources.’
In parallel, experts will study the site’s hydrology, to determine the pollution caused by human residues and waste on local water sources and wells. These have an impact, not only on local communities, but on other, more distant, downstream communities. Climatic projections (future tendencies toward droughts and floods, changes in precipitation and temperatures, etc.) will allow to estimate the consequences of actual and future pollution on the security and quality of water in the region.
Eight-thousanders
The mountaineering team will provide knowledge of the specific places and areas of high-altitude alpinism.
Collaborating, we have, athlete Kilian Jornet, Basque alpinist Alex Txikon, who has summited all 14 eight-thousanders and in 2016 became the first to summit Nanga Parbat in winter; Italian alpinist Tamara Lunger, youngest person to ever summit Lhotse, and Simone Moro, whose claim to fame, above all his Himalayan ascents, is the rescue of English alpinist, Tim Moores, which gained him numerous recognitions and the gold medal for Civil Valor.
With documentation, we count on German journalist, alpinist and director of Himalayan Database, Billi Bierling, and the eight thousand alpinist and mountain guide, Fernando Peralta.
Mountaineering guide and writer, Lakpa Nuru Sherpa, who has summited Everest on three different occasions, will provide local knowledge and the Nepalese point of view on high-altitude alpinism.
Engineering
In the engineering division, we are working on the process of waste management in two phases.
The first phase consists of the detection, inventory and measurement of trash, through aerial data at Base Camp and throughout the route to the summit, with the help of drones. Further on, the data will be processed to help us identify the alteration of surfaces -due to waste or human presence-, the environmental deterioration, the presence of trash, the measurements of snow depths, as well as the volume and quality of the glaciers, among other factors.
The second phase consists of establishing the pickup and recovery of trash through the use of clean, non-polluting energies, which would also be available for the provision of foods, medicines, or evacuation of the injured.
About waste management, the NeverRest project counts on the collaboration of high-level experts on vacuum sewage technology, who design sustainable camps in remote locations and, more recently, Covid-19 campaign hospitals.
Technology
The NeverRest project also counts on experts in satellite surveillance, to measure the fluctuations and quality of water in the Everest area. Because of this, we will not only use these satellites for a first-time compilation of data, but we will also establish a ‘prevention alarm which will be able to detect, in real-time, any problem with the water -residues, waste-, to prevent it from arriving to human, animal or irrigation consumption.’, in words of our specialist in water analysis Jorge García del Arco.
A team of developers, led by computational designer, Daniel Cardelús, works in solutions so that the alpinists and mountainerrs can measure their individual environamental impact and, in this way, revert the actual situation by knowing the consequences of their actions.
Cardelús states that ‘with the purpose of guaranteeing transparency, traceability and confidence of all involved in the project, from governments to mountaineers, we will use distributed registry technologies (DLTs). These are simply non-centralized data banks, managed by numerous participants. This prevents from a single, central authority which can act as referee and verifier. Thanks to the use of this technology, combined with the latest advances in artificial intelligence, we will be able to manage digital identities, create smart contracts, develop advanced calculus algorithms, and even automate part of the processes of data capture and treatment.’
Phases of the Project
The project consists of four main phases:
- Measuring the environmental impact on Mount Everest. We will carry out a field survey to analyze the state of the mountain and establish the volume of waste that has built up with the highest degree of precision possible.
- Cleaning Mount Everest. A team of specialists will carry out an in-depth cleaning of Mount Everest on the Nepalese side.
- A Sustainable Base Camp. The NeverRest Project will provide a sustainable sanitation system for the Everest Base Camp, which will permit sustainable, controllable removal of waste.
- Waste management in the Khumbu zone. The NeverRest Project wants to involve mountaineers and trekkers visiting the Everest zone in this great environmental change, using state-of-the-art waste identification technology that permits waste removal, simply and controllably. Alpinists and mountaineers can measure their individual environmental impact and, in this way, revert the actual situation by knowing the consequences of their actions.