Climbers from Japan and Nepal picked up 500kg of tins, old tents, food and medicines littered on Mount Everest over decades by mountaineers, the climbers said on Monday. 

Hundreds of climbers carrying tons of supplies try and climb the 8, 850 metre (29,035 feet) mountain every year, adding to the piles of trash on its slopes.

Japan's Ken Noguchi, who led the latest in a series of cleaning campaigns on Everest, said most of the garbage his team collected on tehn orthern side of the mountain in the past month had been handed over to authorities in Tibet.

"We have brought some of the garbage with us which will be displayed in Tokyo and Seoul to raise public awareness to keep the mountain clean", Noguchi told Reuters after returning to Japan from Nepal.