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Everest trash now treasures
25/12/2006 21:17 - (SA)
Brunswick - Hundreds of adventurers have been drawn to Mount Everest by the challenge of climbing to the top of the world. Jeff Clapp was drawn by the trash they leave behind.
Inspired by a documentary about Everest's rubbish, Clapp travelled to Nepal and brought a load of discarded oxygen bottles back in 2004.
He has created a business of transforming those banged-up, aluminum containers into gleaming bells, bowls and ornaments with a goal of inspiring people to do more to clean up the environment.
What began as a "madcap idea" is now called Bells from Everest. Clapp has sold 33 bells and bowls so far, and he and his wife have made 10 000 Christmas ornaments. Sir Edmund Hillary
The trashing of Everest began even before Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay first scaled the world's tallest mountain in 1953. Hillary acknowledged leaving behind oxygen bottles, food containers and torn tents in a pile near his base camp.
Like Hillary, virtually all hikers rely on oxygen because the air at Everest's summit has only one-third of the oxygen found at sea level. Over the years, hundreds of bottles piled up along with discarded climbing gear and other trash.
Recent efforts to clean up the mountain include a successful bounty programme for oxygen bottles left behind. The Nepalese government now requires expeditions to pay deposits that are forfeited if rubbish is left behind. 'World's highest junkyard'
Clapp, an artist, chef and concerned father, was inspired to go to Nepal by a National Geographic documentary about trash on Everest, which some called "the world's highest junkyard".
He obtained 132 cylinders from the Nepal Mountaineering Association for $7 000.
It cost nearly that much to ship them back to Maine.
Back at home in Brunswick, he works on the canisters in a basement workshop where the floor is littered with piles of aluminium shavings. Fibreglass shell
The hardest part, he said, is stripping away the yellow fibreglass shell to expose the darkened, oxidized aluminium underneath. He then uses hand tools to shape the bottles as they spin on a wood-turning lathe.
Eventually, they are buffed to a shiny silver colour. Prices range from $1 600 to $3 000 for bells, and $500 to $1 500 for the bowls.
Clapp, said buyers like getting a unique piece of artwork and knowing that they're helping the environment at the same time. "They see the added value of purchasing a gift item that has social responsibility," he said.
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