Used Toilet Paper – Pack it out!

[Julie R]

Went hiking up Eagle Creek trail on the Columbia Gorge – it was beautiful. Kept passing amazing campsites and break spots, but there was used toilet paper everywhere! I was amazed at just how much TP there was, along with other garbage and unburyed human waste. (Did notice that many people do enjoy a view while taking care of business though!).

First a plea (albeit unnecessary since so many use nature wipe!): Please, please, please pack out toilet paper! Please respect the environment and fellow hikers. And burying it isn't enough – animals will dig it up.

Second, how to get the word out about packing TP (and garbage) out? Any ideas on spreading the word about LNT principles, especially for people new to spending time out in the woods? Perhaps posting LNT principles at trailhead boards (is that legal?)?

http://lnt.org/learn/7-principles

I'll get off my soap box now, and thanks for bearing with me. I was just so disheartened by all the litter in such a beautiful place, I just wanted to bring some awareness to it.

[Erik Basil]

…just finished helping 6 make their personal wag-bag for packing out a week's worth of TP each. One earns extra bonus points by the end of the week…

[Justin Baker]

Why should I pack out my toilet paper? It's paper. It gets buried with the rest of my waste. You don't see it again. Or it gets burned in a fire. If there is some specific reason why burying your toilet paper is bad, I would like to know about it.

If you put a piece of paper that states the LNT principles on a trailhead board, I really don't think that anyone would mind. They might appreciate it. I see the LNT stuff posted on a lot of national forest websites, so the forest service definitley encourages that stuff.

[chris Nelson]

Julie

I totally agree with you. Even when we are far out in the woods we find garbage of all kinds. My GF and I have introduced many people to backpacking over the years. One of the first things I teach the newbies is to respect nature and leave no trace. Sometimes that means hiking a little further to find a less impactable camp site, picking up garbage, or destroying an attractive fire ring that is in a place where fires should no be burned.

Education is the key. I see much of my strict LNT quickly rub off on others. Making LNT not one way to do things but the only way is important.

[Greg Mihalik]

"If there is some specific reason why burying your toilet paper is bad, I would like to know about it."

Elsewhere on this site 'lynn tramper' mentions a study looking at the decomposition of, among other things, toilet paper.

It take about two years to decompose. Unless the ground is very wet, then it takes longer.

And, IMHO, it takes a chipmunk about a day to find it and dig it up.

If you can clean your butt at home in the shower, you can clean it in the woods.

No intent here to start yet another NoTP/TP rant, but I think more than a few folks here have missed a bit of the fun… just saying…

[Jerry Adams]

I always pick up trash. Usually, all I see are little bits – rubber band, plastic bag twist tie, corner of a candy bar,…

I think that if all this "micro trash" is picked up, the next person is less likely to leave their trash behind.

[James Marco]

Jerry, I agree. If it is clean it tends to stay clean.

[Kattt]

If I am above tree line, with little soil and no chance of burying, then yes I will pack it out. Otherwise no; I will dig and bury. Last weekend I also came across some TP and while I did not like seeing it, it gave me the heads up that there was something else nearby. As far as it taking 2 years to decompose, I'll say that maybe in the desert that is true, but one good rain takes care of most of it. The second rain usually finishes the job.

[Jerry Adams]

And if you urinate on it after burying it, and get the whole area wet, that helps. Plus the combination of #1 and #2 decomposes faster.

[Greg Mihalik]

"As far as it taking 2 years to decompose, I'll say that maybe…"

Assumptions may be interesting, but nothing beats science: This Thread covers it pretty well.

For those who are not prone to actually reading, it states, among other things, "…Indeed the two sites that exhibited little decay after 24 months (montane moorland and western alpine) had organic soil profiles…"

[Kattt]

"Assumptions may be interesting, but nothing beats science: This Thread covers it pretty well. "

You are the one doing the assuming here. I take care of the grounds of a college, which means both gardening and cleaning up after students. I can tell you, without assuming anything that oranges take a long time to breakdown, banana peels turn dark within a week, shrivel up and hang around till the rains, cigarette butts lose the paper in a few weeks and the filter stays, kleenex only needs to get wet a couple of times before it leaves a hundred small specs of paper that will be dispersed with a couple of kicks. And so on and so forth. Science is it as far as I am concerned, but I don't need it for this. I know firsthand.

[Chris C]

Here is dissertation created by Ron Moak of Six Moon Designs (Fallingwater),
PCT veteran:
========================================================

With respect to my background and reasoning process. It's derived from a
Degree in Forest Management combined with working three years in a major
sewage treatment plant. This provides a pretty good basis for understanding
the forest ecology, forest by products (TP) and waste management.

Since I was the original author of the 3 P's (P00P, pee and puree) method of
waste disposal I thought I'd offer a few comments to the ongoing thread.

I've read most of the posts related to this topic with a fair degree of
indifference. Fundamentally it matters little to me how you treat your TP as
long as it is done environmentally (ie no forest fires please) and it's done
in a LNT manner (ie. I don't have to see it). So pack it out, burn it, bury
it in 6 foot hole, go au'natural or do the 3 P's if that's your fancy.

In general with discussions like this, we like to simplify the problem.
Simple problems are much easier to solve than complex ones. So we'll boil
the whole proper waste disposal discussion into "Get rid of the TP eyesore".
Since we've simplified the problem, let's find a simple solution. One that's
easy to remember and easy to convey when we want to pound it into someone
else's head who doesn't happen to agree with us. In this case "PACK IT OUT".
You got admit is goes well with our current nanosecond attention span.

When I originally proposed the 3 P's method, I wanted something that was
environmentally sound. Admittedly, I don't cherish the thought of packing
out used toilet paper.

Of all of the methods of dealing with waste disposal, the 3 P's is the most
environmentally sound. Why, because it deals not only with the toilet paper,
it's designed to aid in the breakdown of the waste as well.

Our bodies to an amazing job squeezing moisture out of our waste before it's
deposited. Scatology is a whole science devoted to the study of petrified
P00P.

The purpose of the 3 P's is add moisture, in the form of pee or a cup of
water if you're empty, to the mix to aid in the growth of bacteria. They, in
turn, will naturally compost the waste. The TP acts as a sponge and soaks up
the moisture, slowly releasing it back as needed. By slowly releasing the
water, you increase the amount of time available to compost the waste.

Pureeing the mixture, incorporates the TP within the waste. Properly done,
there is no sign of the TP. It also mixes in some of the surrounding soil
that contains microbes helpful in breaking down the waste.

Cover it in a few inches of forest debris and you've got a little totally
unnoticed waste facility plant working to do what nature does best.
Recycling us into the next generation of plants and animals.

---

Fallingwater

(some text was edited for the profanity filter)

[Kattt]

Thanks Chris. This makes so much sense it's bound to encounter some fierce opposition.

[John Nausieda]

When and where was this. I hike this trail many times a year and haven't seen this over the last 20 years. Group camp? how far in ? Details please. No excuse given the distance , lack of suitable ground relative to water. Thanks, John

[James Marco]

No problem here, I 100% agree.

That said, I have burried large amounts of TP found in spring along side most trails.

[John S.]

Pack it in, pack it out. Leaving toilet paper is never a good idea if you care about LNT.

[Ken Thompson]

I have camped in some of the same spots over and over again, for years and years. Done my business and use the puree method. I have never seen any trace of reappearance. I think alot of TP found in the wild is from females doing number one. No hole. The majority of the paper I do see always looks fairly clean and like it was not subject to heavy use. Dab and toss. Always find the grosser to be closer to the trailhead. Uneducated day hikers.

[Stephen Barber]

I'm with Chris on this one. 3Ps, p00p soup, call it what you like, but mixing p00p, TP, liquid and dirt is as LNT as you can get. Unless you forego the TP and use leaves or direct water washing. Either way, mixing p00p and dirt with added moisture accelerates the recycling process.

[Justin Baker]

I see that too Ken, lots of small pieces of very clean TP. I always wondered what that was about.

[Paul Wagner]

It's easy to say that this is all caused by day-hikers, but we've found lots and lots of TP in areas that are deep in the backcountry and can't be from dayhikers. It's not a coincidence that this is often near a campsite, rather than a hiking trail itself.

And it's not just all women peeing, judging from the evidence.

We pack ours out. We pack it out because we are sick and tired of seeing other people's TP in the woods. Yeah, I know people bury it and pee on it and carefully blend it into a puree with organic material, and then serve it over ice cream. Or maybe they do most of that, but not all of it. Or they bury it four inches deep, or under a rock they found that was easy to move, or they're in a hurry this time and don't bury it at all.

And so we still see TP in the backcountry. Rodents do dig this stuff up and spread it all over the ground.

Frankly, nothing takes the bloom off a glorious wilderness campsite like finding someone else's TP behind the nearest tree.

[Will Webster]

What Paul said.

[Addison Page]

I hated packing out tp, but I also can't do the Clelland booty scraping either.

I usually take an extra small washcloth. I use about a liter of water, a couple splashes at a time till the cloth comes off my behind relatively clean. Use the rest of the water to give it one last rinse then it goes in the mesh pocket of my pack to dry. When it's dry it doesn't really smell and weighs about as much as a some tp.

You can also use that time to scrub down your nether regions a bit.

[Julie R]

Regarding the question of location on the Eagle Creek Trail, the TP was pretty much everywhere one would think to take care of business, and then some. Someone peed on the trail and left the toilet paper sitting on top of the trail. Every designated campsite was littered with toilet paper, except at tent pads. In the wilderness area, we took a break at a nice log next to a stream, less than 10 feet from the trail and smelled p00p, looked behind us and there was a nice pile (not buried) with toilet paper within a few feet of the stream. I found TP well off the trail where people did try to find secluded locations for taking care of business.

We hiked the entire Eagle Creek Trail, and it wasn't until we got up to the PCT that we finally stopped seeing TP/waste at every campsite or every time we found an area to take a rest break. TP we saw wasn't just from people peeing either – you could see the remnants on the TP from #2. No attempt to even bury the TP.

[Julie R]

Puree method sounds effective and all, but again it seems to go back to educating the general trail using public – how do you get the word out to pack-it-out or puree? If TP doesn't even get buried, then the issue of pack-it-out vs. puree isn't even relevant.

And if it isn't being fully pureed as described, the buried TP does find it's way to the surface. When I was leading trail crews in the backcountry and we'd be based out of one location for a week or two, it was always obvious when teenagers were trying to sneakily bury their TP instead of packing it out as we were required by the organization – after a few days, it would end up on the surface – animals would dig it up.

On a lighter note, most teens were quite open to using nature wipe, especially on 5 or 6 week trips, and it became quite the obsession to find the best wipe possible. One teen created a great bidet system out of a used mustard bottle. Interestingly, the boys' latrines (from what I heard) were always given much more thought then the girls' latrine – views, latrine placement next to logs for best positioning over the hole, makeshift bidets, prepared nature wipe stashes, etc.

[Chris C]

I agree that no matter the method, puree or pack out, education is paramount for proper waste disposal. I have smelled someones cat hole that they dug within 10 feet of an established camp site and didn't do a very good job of covering it up.

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