The Waste Management Manual provides concrete solutions and encouraging practical actions for waste reduction and more sustainable waste and resource management during expeditions to remote mountains and advocates for environmental protection and conservation. An initiative started by the Association Mountain Synergies in 2022, it is to continue until 2027 being internationally relevant for remote mountain regions, with an initial focus on Nepalese Himalayas. The manual has been disseminated in America, Europe, Asia and Africa as most of the solutions and actions recommended and tools included are relevant and applicable in many mountain regions.

Mountain Synergies believes that all those organizing and participating in expeditions to the mountains have a role to play in the preservation and regeneration of the mountain environment.

However today, there is little data and materials about this subject, guidelines available remain general, policies and implementation weak and most mountaineers don’t necessarily know how to reduce their footprint and limit their waste. By having concrete actions they can implement, these key players can mitigate their environmental impact and contribute positively to local communities’ socio-economic well-being and act to reduce the existing knowledge to action gap.

The vision of this project is to reconnect expedition organizers and participants to their “playground”, so that it is not only an object of personal reward, conquest or consumption but a precious environment and ecosystem that needs to be protected for the others and for itself.

The main project goals are to help achieve a reduction in the environmental negative impact on mountain ecosystems, promote responsibility and accountability, share best practices and raise awareness among the mountaineering community.

By bridging the gap between adventure mountain tourism and environmental stewardship, the project aim is to establish replicable standards for sustainable waste management for mountaineering expeditions.

The Manual is focused on waste in the mountains in relation to mountaineering expeditions, both solid waste and wastewater (liquid waste), initially developed for the Nepalese Himalayas, but with a wider applicability, solutions and actions proposed being relevant to other remote mountain areas.

The Waste Management Manual is seen as a useful and practical tool supporting the transition towards organising and taking part in more sustainable mountaineering expeditions in remote mountains. Some of its sections are applicable also to climbing and trekking expeditions.

Through the Manual, the projects aims to:

• prevent as much waste as possible before the expedition
• propose concrete sustainable options during all the phases of the expedition, in order to reduce its environmental impact
• promote responsibility, accountability and ownership among the various stakeholders
• increase knowledge and capacity of all expedition participants for more sustainable expeditions

Mountain Synergies has developed and funded the Manual and in 2024 made it freely available to the global mountaineering community, in English and Chinese.

In the next stage Mountain Synergies will focus on the implementation and revision of the Manual and further translation in other relevant languages, together with the development of other tools, such as local language information material for local staff, carbon calculator tailored for expeditions and mountain sports, a resource section with more sustainable solutions for mountain sports practitioners, workshops, training and sharing of best practices.