Sherpas working on Mount Everest carry all that and more - 20kg/person - navigating a four-hour hike that traverses crumbling glacial ice and treacherous crevasses to bring trash back to base camp.
During the most recent climbing season, they had new assistance from two giant DJI drones, which can complete the same journey in six minutes, sharing the task of clearing an expanding volume of refuse piling up on the world's highest peak.
Drones have been deployed to haul garbage from Everest's Camp 1, which sits at 6 065m above sea level down to base camp, about 700m below. After a DJI FlyCart 30 delivers supplies like ropes and ladders up the peak, Sherpas hook on a debris-filled garbage bag for the drone's return journey as it buzzes down the mountain, sounding like an oversized mosquito.
Between mid-April and mid-May, the drones operated by Nepal-based firm Airlift Technology handled more than 280kg of refuse, according to the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, a local non-profit that manages trash collection on Everest.
"When you're coming down from Camp 1 and it's warm, you can smell the garbage," and that has caused respiratory problems for some Sherpas, he said. "We want more drones carrying heavier weights."