Packing Out Unsavory Detritus

[Konrad .]

Richard, very valid point indeed. At the end of the day, I guess there is no real good way to dispose plastic bags. My main concerns were about breathing in toxins (me before the environment, selfish I know :/)

[David Thomas]

I just double checked on wikipedia and yes, Ziplock bags are polyethylene. So it's just hydrogen and carbon in that plastic. That burns to produce mostly CO2 and H2O plus some soot and PAHs and an assortment of shorter-chain hydrocarbons. Rather like burning wood. A hot fire with excess air will burn it cleaner. Letting it smolder will make a smokey, dirtier fire.

But it doesn't have any chlorine in it like PVC does (for instance the clear plastic wrap over the hamburger in the store). Without chlorine, it can't create the more toxic chlorinated hydrocarbons.

Don't burn PVC or CPVC because of the chlorine. Don't burn pressure-treated wood because of the heavy metals (copper, chromium, *element #33).

If you burn wood or paper or polyethylene (milk bottles, Nalgene, Ziplocks), do it in a hot fire and stand upwind. Millions of people in the third world die of cooking over wood fires. Good old wood.

Why does plastic smoke smell worse than wood smoke? I suspect because we're descended from 20,000 generations of humanoids who sat around wood fires. Dying of black lung or PAH-induced lung cancer at 60 doesn't stop your genetic legacy nearly as much as dying of hypothermia or saber-tooth cat attack at 15.

If I had to tell people "burn all plastic" or "burn no plastic", I'd go with the later. But I'd rather tell people which plastics to avoid burning and which aren't so bad.

* OMG! I wasn't allowed to write the full name of As, element 33, because it was a "possible profanity". Here, I'll misspell it: "ar$enic". I unknowingly drank high ar$enic water for a year while living in a log cabin and 18-36 months later had 5 skin cancers carved out of my skin, so it's an element I'm unusually concerned about.

Look, I'm new here, and I understand that keeping everything safe for Boy Scouts is a worthy goal. But you've got articles you have to pay for (I joined) that use "effing" while some topless Eastern European in chartreuse leotards edits "fr1ck1ng brillant" from my post complimenting someone. If you can't allow the 109 (and, this month, now 112) named elements to be used in polite conversation, something is wrong with your filter.

[Timothy Reynolds]

Thanks so much, everyone, for you invaluable input.

Bio Bag make a biodegradable (corn based) plastic dog-doo bag, that may be of interest to some. Yep, for me the accumulation of tons of plastic bags would be something of a concern, as I try to keep my plastic bag use to the absolute minimum and recycle those that I can.

Also, David, on another matter, you mentioned that you were exposed to high levels of As Element 33 (the chemical whose name were unable to type, as in "As Element 33 and Old Lace"). The rangers in the Grand Canyon have said that there are high levels of As Element 33 (sigh) in the spring water there. In your opinion, will exposure for just two or three days pose any long-term health risk?

Thanks, again,

Tim.

PS: I agree that it's a little silly we can't discuss this naturally occurring chemical—one that may pose a risk to hikers—simply because the first syllable of its name is synonymous with a person's derriere.

[Nick Gatel]

PS: I agree that it's a little silly we can't discuss this naturally occurring chemical—one that may pose a risk to hikers—simply because the first syllable of its name is synonymous with a person's derriere.

Just capitalize it: Arsenic

[Timothy Reynolds]

D'Oh! Thanks.

[Ben C]

Just put the paper out of the top of the poo like a wick and light it.

[Anonymous]

"Right, and I believe that's the major reason why burning TP in a cat hole is bad practice."

That's a bit of a sweeping statement, don't you think? More like burnng TP is bad practice when it's windy in a dry vegetated area or when the cat hole is dug in flammable material. I've been burning it in situ in the Sierra at and above treeline for nearly 40 years now, with nary a forest fire to my credit. If there is any doubt, simply dig a little deeper and bury it. It will break down quite nicely within a year. Also, SOP for me is to either p*e*e on it or douse it with water after burning, just to make sure.

[Nick Gatel]

That's a bit of a sweeping statement, don't you think? More like burnng TP is bad practice when it's windy in a dry vegetated area or when the cat hole is dug in flammable material. I've been burning it in situ in the Sierra at and above treeline for nearly 40 years now, with nary a forest fire to my credit. If there is any doubt, simply dig a little deeper and bury it. It will break down quite nicely within a year. Also, SOP for me is to either p*e*e on it or douse it with water after burning, just to make sure.

---

Well, Tom…

I have been burning it for 40 years too. Long ago I took a couple of dumps in spots I could easily locate the next year, using the technique you described. And then the next year I went back to inspect it. Guess what?

No animal had dug it up, and it was gone! Zip. Nada. Yep, composted. Humanure.

[Anonymous]

"I have been burning it for 40 years too. Long ago I took a couple of dumps in spots I could easily locate the next year, using the technique you described. And then the next year I went back to inspect it. Guess what?

No animal had dug it up, and it was gone! Zip. Nada. Yep, composted. Humanure."

That mirrors my experience exactly, Nick. Like yourself, I went back and checked each year, over the course of several trips to a place I particularly care about. I was initially concerned over the possibility of either a critter digging it up, snarfing it down, and then wandering over to the nearest pristine stream to wash it down, or it just sitting there. Like yourself, I found it completely composted.

Humanure. That has a nice ring to it. Do you think we could bag it up and sell it, sort of like guano? Ooops, got to go; I just heard a bellow of outrage from Mike C. ;)

[Ken Thompson]

Nick beat me to it.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Actually the easiest way to get rid of poo when it is allowed to leave it behind is to smear it. It composes quite quickly. Spread it like frosting. But…not something to do in high visited areas!!!!

On the burning of TP in holes, it is a real risk – especially in areas with underground roots of trees and shrubs that can smolder. While most of us will never have an issue it has caused actual fires (google it!).

[David Thomas]

Timothy: I'm not a toxicologist. But I studied chemical engineering, I read risk assessment reports about heavy metals far too often in my work as an environmental engineer, I've dealt with Arsenic in the groundwater at about 20 sites I've worked on, and I follow the medical and public health aspects somewhat closely. And my wife is an MD.

Thanks for the GCNP info. I've done lots of rim-river-rim hikes (and had a wonderful trip with my 11-year old this May) and one rim-to-rim-to-rim but I haven't gotten off the main corridor.

Short answer: don't worry about 2-3 days.

Risk is proportional to concentration x exposure.

Concentration is measured in parts per billion (ppb) with the old USA standard being 50 ppb, the new USA standard being 10 ppb and the international standard being 5 ppb. All of these levels are pretty high compared to many, many other regulated risks. If I site a new emission source for a client, the air permit holds me to a 1 in 100,000 to 1 in a million risk. That's a 1 in a million risk of a neighbor acquiring an additional cancer for having drunk that water every day for 70 years. The USA Arsenic standard is probably between 1 in 50 and 1 in 500 risk. And guess what? I'm the one in fifty – the one in my neighbor. Bad skin in my family history, including a fatal skin cancer in a first cousin and a variety of other cancers. I've talked at length to a researcher MD PhD who specializes in basal cell skin cancer and he points out that people in the same Bangladesh village, drinking from the same very high-Arsenic well – some have hundreds of skin lesions and other people have none. Same exposure, different outcomes. Clearly, there is a highly individual response to the exposure.

After my skin cancer surgeries and reading up on it, I went back to that rental cabin, grabbed a water sample, and had it analyzed. It was 11 ppb that day, but it can vary a fair bit with pumping rate, turbidity, etc. But not way high (1,000-2,000 ppb) like in Fallon, NV where LOTS of people get skin and organ cancers from Arsenic.

For myself (and I have every reason to believe I am unusually sensitive to Arsenic) I wouldn't fret about 5-10-50-100 ppb in water for a few days. Heck, I'll be at an office Christmas party at my wife's partner's house in Kasilof, AK (same water I drank for a year in 1998) and I'll drink the water. Or maybe I'll stick to the bottled beer .

So ask the Rangers what the concentrations they've found. At a level of 2,000 ppb (2 ppm) or above, I'd think about carrying water from further away. But I'd never walk past any water source if I needed the water. You've got lots of skin, two kidneys, and don't really need a prostrate unless you like six with an "e" (although lung and liver cancer just plain suck). But heat stroke will kill you in hours.

Again, I'm that 1 in a hundred sensitive person. Unless Arsenic is in the thousands of ppb, really, you'll benefit more from the physical and mental health effects of the hike than you could possibly be hurt in a few days of water consumption.

[W I S N E R !]

(peeking head out of hidden bunker…)

Toxicology reports, forest fire fears, PVC POOP tubes, the environmental sustainability of disposing POOP baggies in landfills vs. trash fires, animals digging stuff up….Boy, all this TP stuff sure is sounding pretty darned complicated!

What if I told you that for three easy payments of $19.95 (cash and gold only, cigarette cartons and booze will be considered in trade) I could share information and skills that would wash all your TP troubles away? Step right up!

(…OK, back to the bunker now.)

[David Thomas]

Yes, it would seem that forum participants can take an action that humanoids have done every day for 800,000 years and make it incredibly complicated (with a little help from the NPS).

I once came back home after two extended, back-to-back, Sierra trips and found myself eyeing bushes in the backyard. Then I realized that there was a perfectly usable porclein fixture just down the hall.

[Nick Gatel]

We are looking at it from the wrong angle. The root cause is too many people in the wilderness. So we simply get rid of all roads in, out or near the wilderness. Make it a minimum hike of 30 miles to reach it and very few people would go. Plus we save a lot of money of road maintenance.

Problem solved.

[Brian Austin]

If you are really worried about p-oop paper decomposing in the woods, carry the stuff used in portable toilets. It decomposes about 5X faster. In a month or so.

Yea, that is why the # of backpackers is dropping drastically throughout the US and why NPS has far lower #'s of folks going into the backcountry, lack of access. No, its called a change in culture. #'s of backpackers is not rising, its falling. Drastically. Now you propose cutting off even more access so the only folks who can now get into the wilderness are those who have a week of time… Who has that usually? No one. There are very few in the wilderness to start with. What you just did was increase the cost of trail maintenance by a factor of 4. Now even more trails will vanish due to no one using them.

Maintaining the roads to "passable" instead of immaculate is the first place to start. That and get rid of idiot rules regarding maintaining said roads requiring EIS moronacy for a DIRT ROAD in the fracking wilderness will free up even more $$$. Maintaining the roads is not expensive, doing all the bureaucratic environmental red tape is! Just look at why the Suiattle River road here in Washington hasn't been repaired.

The River ripped out several hundred thousand cubic yards of material and deposited it in the river and moron wacko environmentalists won't allow the FS to move the road over a couple hundred feet over a half mile length because, horrors said new road "might" add a few yards of silt to a creek and the judge won't throw the case out as insanity. So instead the project never starts because it costs more to hire a lawyer than to do the project due to rich fat cat environmental wacko's who give the rest of us a bad name. That and if there ever is a fire, the entire region will burn as now there is no access.

[Justin Baker]

Just the toilet paper? I would just burn it. In spring, fire danger shouldn't be that big of an issue.
Burn, stomp it out. Unless they wind is blowing like crazy, it shouldn't be a issue. I really don't know if that's legal or not, just saying what I would do.
I don't really see a piece of flaming paper starting a fire unless it lands directly on a pile of cat tail fluff.

[Sumi Wada]

Note that the OP is talking about hiking in the Grand Canyon National Park where it's *required* to pack out toilet paper. No fires allowed in the backcountry. You're not required to pack out p00p though they've been running a voluntary WAG program at Clear Creek.

[Erik Basil]

Bla bla bla…bla bla bla.

Yeah, the OP is packing in a location that REQUIRES packing out TP. It's neither here nor there, but rules like that tend to arise in places where there develops a pattern of exposed TP all over the place. Without the issue, the rule doesn't arise.

Now some of us may be so elite and important that we don't need to follow no stinking rules. Ho ho… stinking… The elite are so skilled and smart (maybe really true) that they can burn, eat, compost, repurpose and whatnot with their krap and paper. Awesome! However, for those who choose to comply with guidelines regarding the use of TP, it becomes a legitimate issue to discuss: "what's the best way to deal with TP?"

Sure, it's a forum, so we can kvetch about the deep injustice of regulations that arise due to the behavior of the non-elite, or how silly those people who wipe their butt are, but the original query was seeking advice for how to do it best. Not, "why I don't do it".

[Anonymous]

"But you've got articles you have to pay for (I joined) that use "effing" while some topless Eastern European in chartreuse leotards edits "fr1ck1ng brillant" from my post complimenting someone."

LOL Roger C. must be rolling around on the rug by his computer right about now. ;=)

[Anonymous]

"Boy, all this TP stuff sure is sounding pretty darned complicated!"

Hey Craig, long nights, short days, a funk has descended over the community and the debating season has begun. This, too, shall pass. Come spring, BPLers will emerge from their computer rooms and sally forth into the wild; overblown fears of burning TP generated forest fires, A*rsenic toxicity of burning WAG bags, and heated debates over the arcane details of how best to carry your soiled tissues will waft away on the spring breeze like so much………CHAFF. Thus it has always been. ;=)

[David Thomas]

Tom: My bad. I saw "Kosciusko NP" and thought an ex-pat living in Poland. Just googled it and while there is a Kosciuszko Park in Katowice, Poland, there is also a Kosciusko Park in Oz. I hope to get there (that smallest continent / largest island) someday and learn Down Under geography much better. The color scheme and pattern on the tights also had me thinking Eastern Europeans in a "Two Wild and Crazy Guys" way. Aussies are perhaps unique in that they'll dress like that not only when they have a "six pack" but much later when they have a beer belly after too many six packs.

[Anonymous]

" Aussies are perhaps unique in that they'll dress like that not only when they have a "six pack" but much later when they have a beer belly after too many six packs."

Unique? Clearly you have never spent visited a beach on the Dalmatian Coast packed with Eastern Europeans with pendulous bellies hanging over teeny little G-string bikinis. 'Tis not a pretty sight. They put the denizens of Oz to shame. ;)

[David Thomas]

For BPers, agreed. But rafting on the Colorado River, you HAVE to pack out the p00p in a surplus rocket box and they weigh the boxes on your departure to make sure you didn't cheat. A possible preview of things to come for us landlubbers? Conscientious cavers have been doing that for years.

[David Thomas]

Tom: Right you are. I went to Slovakia and they have cool mountains (the Tatras), but no coastline so I was spared that sight.

German men along the Med do that too, but in more sedate colors.

[Author]

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