The large numbers of trekkers and climbers that visit Nepal and Mount Everest region have caused many of the environmental issues. Some of the issues are the burning of wood for fuel, pollution from human waste and trash, and abandoned climbing gear. Some of the local Sherpas take that gear and either reuse them or sell them to other trekkers and climbers. It is estimated that more than 50 tons of plastic, glass, and metal was dumped on Mount Everest between 1953 and the mid-1990s. Mount Everest has a nickname now, known as the "world's highest junkyard." Up on the ice that people climb they throw their trash into the crevasses that years from now will show up in the ground. The Nepalese government has been using a portion of the climbing fees to help clean up the mountain. In 1976, with help from Sir Edmund Hillary's Himalayan Trust and the Nepalese government opened the Sagarmatha National Park. It was opened to help save the remaining forest around the mountain. Now trekkers and climbers that climb Mount Everest have to carry their own fuel ( normally butane and kerosene ), and now the burning of wood for fuel is against the law. Trekking and climbing are becoming more and more popular on Mount Everest, however the environment's future is uncertain.

The Himalayas rose from the bottom of the Tethys Sea. They were created when the Eurasian continental plate collided with the Indian subcontinental plate 30 to 50 million years ago. The yellow band across the top of Mount Everest is made up of marine limestone. It is now covered with glaciers. Mount Everest has three major glaciers on it. They are starting clockwise the Khumbu Glacier in the Northeast and Southwest, West Rongbuk Glacier to the North, East Rongbuk in the Northeast, and the Kangshung Glacier to the East.