9.5 Sagarmatha Next: An Experiential Waste-Management Museum
This sustainable waste management museum stands in the Khumbu region en route to the Mt. Everest base camp and reinvests all profits to improve the area’s waste management. Constructed from local materials and built by local Sherpa people, the museum educates visitors about waste and waste management, leads creative waste solution workshops and environmental conferences, and showcases art made from debris. Films and exhibits educate museum goers about how to reduce their carbon footprint, and the museum also distributes 1 kg “Carry Me Packs” for trekkers who volunteer to collect garbage on their climbs. The museum brings together artists and designers focused on creating ways to upcycle reusable waste. According to their website:
In 2019 alone, the Khumbu Valley received over 60,000 tourists which along with the local guides and staff of 20,000 and 7,000 indigenous sherpas [distinct from Indigenous Sherpa people, sherpas are mountaineering guides] and workers from other parts of Nepal resulted in the generation of about 790 kg of waste per day during the trekking seasons which added up to +200 tonnes of waste in the year 2019.
Even though continuous efforts have been taken by the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) and various local stakeholders to collect and manage the waste, the challenge is still “what to do with the collected waste?”. At present most of it is left behind in numerous pits (+75) that are dug throughout the Khumbu Valley and Sagarmatha National Park, where most of the waste is simply burnt. The lack of infrastructure in the high regions and the difficulty to transport it out of the valley has required all of us to think about creative ways to manage the waste. (Sagarmatha Next, 2025b)
Designed by architect Anne Feenstra and built by Sustainable Mountain Architecture, the center was constructed by locals and incorporates debris salvaged from the slopes, including ropes and clothes, tents, carabiners, and oxygen cylinders. According to Feenstra:
During the construction, the topsoil was locally conserved and placed back around the buildings…. Every window is uniquely designed to let the low-angled morning sun come in. Chamfered [sloped] walls allow this passive solar heating process to happen even more efficiently….
Local pine timber and local granite stone, sometimes with tinges of mica and quartz, are used for the walls. Yellow deep soil from the site was mixed with yak, cow dung, eggshell, and mustard oil to create a fine cement-free mortar. While the double-curved stones of the buttresses are highly sculptured, Yak wool in different colors and patterns is used for the robust curtains in the Shop and the Interpretation Space. (Sagarmatha Next, 2025a)
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Key Takeaway
Sagarmatha Next is an innovative waste-management museum in Nepal’s Khumbu region that blends environmental education, creative reuse of waste (upcycling), and place-inspired and eco-conscious architecture to address the severe waste crisis caused by tourism around Mt. Everest.
Significance of Regenerative Tourism
By transforming waste into art, educating visitors, and hiring locals, Sagarmatha Next exemplifies regenerative tourism’s core principles: healing environmental damage, preserving local cultures, and fostering sustainable livelihoods through creativity and collaboration.
Significance to Tourism
Sagarmatha Next provides a model of how tourism infrastructure can tackle the environmental harm caused by visitors, engaging tourists as active participants in conservation rather than passive consumers. It highlights how destination stewardship can innovate beyond traditional waste disposal by turning environmental challenges into community-led opportunities for learning and regeneration.
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Design Lab 1: Create a Museum Experience that Supports 1 or More SDGs
Choose two of the SDGs listed in Figure 2.
Brainstorm a museum or other educational facility that can help achieve these two goals.
Imagine the activities that the facility could host that would simultaneously aid both aims.
Tip: Review the discussion of the waste museum Sagarmatha Next for inspiration. Note their use of waste workshops and upcycled art, both of which educate guests and model creative ways of dealing with a problem.
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