Green backpacking choices

I don’t know anyone who disposes of plastic ground cloths, or any other kind; they use them til they shred. I re-use ziplock bags, rehydrating in cups and washing the bags at home to use them again. Used but clean plastic, I toss in the recycle bin. I poke holes in the canisters and recycle those too. I used the link on this article to verify who recycles steel canisters.

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2015-3-may-june/green-life/hey-mr-green-how-can-i-recycle-my-camp-stove-fuel-canisters

Kermit did it.  ;)

To me it depends on how ‘green’ you mean.  Mountainsmith makes packs out of recycled packs.  However they are still plastic based.  Natural fibers are greenest I guess… maybe look at Fjallraven?  They have a lot of natural fibers (for clothes and backpacks anyway) and are in the same climate, sorta…

Gonna be missing the lightweight criteria though

> Is it possible to be light weight, relatively comfortable, and still green?

In some ways, sure; in others it will be difficult.  [It’s certainly interesting to note how much “disposable” stuff there is in our current lifestyle “across the board”, not just in backpacking!]

#1 BEST TIP – Treat your gear gently, and take good care of it.

Sleeping bag/quilt:  Buy a top-quality item, take good care of it, and keep it for a long time.  Will you have THE lightest, newest, most trendy one out there? No, but you’ll have a good, light-enough piece of gear (think 10-yr-old WM – still great!).  Ironically, down would be a better choice than synthetic, because it retains its loft through many, many more cycles of compression than a synthetic will.  For example, I have a quality winter sleeping bag from 1999 that is as good now as when I bought it. I believe it’ll last at least another decade or two, especially with infrequent/seasonal use.

Tent:  Cuben might be too “disposable” for greenness, as it’s more fragile and folks have said that, when it gets old, its water-proofing deteriorates.  Perhaps a silpoly or silnylon of medium-light weight would last the longest (and could be re-treated as needed for water-proofing). If your tent has a slightly higher-denier floor, and you’re careful about site selection/cleaning, you would not need a footprint at all.  Keep the zippers out off the ground, and gently clean the tent regularly to prevent deterioration from dirt/dust.

Backpack: Again, a more durable, wear&tear-resistant fabric, and treat it gently. Perhaps a metal frame (like Seek Outside) that could last (nearly) forever.

Some items that will be more challenging:

Electronics (GPS/Phone/Headlamp/external battery) — maybe a solar charger (I like my Suntactics 5), but many of these devices will have planned obsolescence.

Clothing — Think nylon! Nylon is generally more abrasion resistant, and doesn’t develop “perma-stink” like polyester, so you can keep it for a long time.  I have old nylon clothes from the late 1990s that look virtually new, even though I’ve hiked in them a ton – and they’re “reasonably light”.  Merino wool “sounds” green, but in reality often wears out fairly quickly (esp. compared to nylon).

Toiletries — Get a bamboo toothbrush (light and more sustainable). Don’t buy mini-sized products; instead pour your lotions & potions into little containers that you reuse (love my old eye drops bottles for all kinds of on-trail products). Use a “trail bidet” and avoid toilet paper.

Poisons — Don’t use bug spray. Instead, cover up with nylon clothing and a head net. Instead of sun block, try (as much as possible) to cover up instead.

Food — As much as possible, make your own “pre-portioned” snacks, re-use the ziplocks when practical, and cook in your pot (my 30 year-old titanium pot is still rockin’!), rather than doing freezer bag cooking.

In conclusion, if you’re trying to be truly “UL” base weight under 10lbs, you’ll have to make some compromises to greenness. If you’re going SUL, you may have to throw most of it out the window! ;~)

“When my parents camped, they used the same tent, sleeping bags (til they got infested with mice one winter), stove, everything – for some 30 years, the ultimate in re-use. But it weighed a ton. Is it possible to be light weight, relatively comfortable, and still green?”

Buy a good down bag (WM, etc) and it’ll last you 30 years or more. Buy a Hilleberg tent and take care of it, and it’ll last you a good long while. There’s no reason a stove, if taken care of, wouldn’t last a long time (Nick G. still uses a Svea (I think) stove that he’s had for decades). By a McHale pack and it’ll last you for decades. (Really, I’d think most packs, if not trashed, should last you decades).

Sometimes it means spending a bit more money up front. Sometimes it means carrying a bit more weight (but not significantly more, really, in many cases) and most of the time it just means caring for your gear.

(Valerie beat me to it!)

I don’t know…the ultralight movement has been a very wasteful trend in the outdoor gear world, causing countless people (including myself) to continuously buy new gear and hoard (or discard) perfectly usable older gear.  Thankfully I consider myself somewhat past the gear testing and accumulation phase of ultralight backpacking, but I’ll be damned if the temptation to buy new products to shave ounces isn’t a very wasteful mentality that I still wrestle with.  Steeping oneself in market reports and reviews, product catalogues, and websites flaunting the newest and greatest doesn’t help one resist the consumer urge.

Buy quality gear and keep it and use it for as long as possible.  Anything outside of this and we’re likely playing make-believe about making “green” choices.

Compared to other vacations and hobbies, backpacking seems like a fairly green choice for your first-world recreation needs.

I don’t fret about using poly-cro sheeting for 20-30 nights and then tossing it.  More resources went into heavier options so I’d have to use them 50-100 times to come out ahead.

I don’t get over-excited about a few hot-button green ideas (recycling, especially) preferring to make other, bigger, greener choices.  e.g. if I drive to the trailhead at 1 mph slower, the gasoline I save will be a bigger effect than that poly-cro groundcloth.

I agree with Valerie that nylon is an especially durable fiber.  My Patagonia baggie shorts, long pants, wind shell that I got 35 years ago are still fine.

How about the intersection of two concepts: (1) buy less stuff and (2) “beware the man with one gun”.  The second idea is that if you use something regularly, you’ll get really good with it.  Like Nick and his Svea-123R.  From 1978 to 1982, I was that dialed in with my Svea, but then I got an MSR XGK, then a Whisperlite, etc.  Now I switch around between 6 different stoves and I’m not as good at operating any particular one of them.  I watch Manfred use his Caldera Cone with an alcohol stove and he’s really practiced and consistent with it.  If you go with a canister stove, learn to use a Moulder Strip, learn to refill from the cheaper 450-gram canisters, and you’ll have a very versatile, all-season set-up.

As far as avoiding the closet full of similar gear – borrowing from friends is a great way to test-drive something and decide before buying.  It would be nice if you could rent more UL gear, but I’m starting to see some gear lists posted with a few big-ticket rented items like tents.

Going to a GGG is a great way to see gear in person, see if you fit in that tent, how a pack feels on your back, and to get first-person reports from others.

Solid fuel and Alcohol stoves are both lighter and greener, It takes an extra 2-3 min to boil your water but whats the rush anyway. I made a shelter out of those emergency orange sheets and used it for about 5 years till I got the zpack emergency shelter which I use the same bag a pool cover came in (might be Tyvek) that I taped into a bathtub floor. Remember One night not running an air conditioner and driving a car around can make up for a lot of plastic bags.

I have the urge to be more “green” (a little bit more), but then how far do you go? Not very. We all have cell phones and computers and such, which aren’t so green.

I’m going to try to reuse my ziplock bags more. A salve for my silly conscience.

Oh, and being cheap and/or “poor” helps too. I’ve had just one pack (ULA) and one sleeping bag (WM) the last ten years.

Every time I’m driving to the trailhead, I think how ironic (and wasteful) it is that I’m driving hundreds of miles to go for a walk.

Fuel canisters are just cans. Mine get recycled. Don’t know why people always bring them up but have a pantry full of canned goods.

Plastic groundsheets can be recycled. Nylon goes in the landfill. Think of all those cheap, lousy tents.

Thanks all. Ken – none of these things can be recycled where I live; all goes into the landfill. Except the steel food cans, which can actually be recycled here! But not fuel canisters, not plastic groundsheets. If you’re wondering why people bring these things up, it’s because recycling is not universal; options are regionally specific. Much of what you may think you are recycling does not actually get recycled either. It gets hauled away, but it isn’t all getting a new life as something else; it might be getting stockpiled somewhere. And small or remote places have no options at all. Every plastic thing I throw away will be buried for the next 1000 years, if it doesn’t flow into the river, which is right next to the dump, where the herring gulls routinely haul things away and drop them, wherever.

But I hear you all, a plastic groundsheet isn’t much compared to all the plastic crap we use every day. I’m just trying to use less and less and less.  I’ll keep that fleece half zip til I die, and maybe leave it to my heirs. Actually BPL has been great for choosing new products, because with thorough descriptions of the durability of gear, I’m able to choose things that I will like and that will last. I mean, I could still use my 6 pound, 2 person REI half dome from 1989, or my 7 pound Eagle Creek pack from 1992, but… Even those old heavy things will see another life with local youth groups.

Country living has a price. Lack of services.

Always recycled my fuel canisters with the rest of the steel cans. Just needed to be punctured for our little disposal company to be happy to take them.  But I hear that a huge percent of things being not actually recycled after drop off. It is a far from perfect system, like most things.

Its the old thought pattern: should i drive the same old car (that gets 15mpg), or buy an efficient car (sending old car to scrap/ bringing another into the world)

If you are human your effin up the world.  Just try to minimize the damage and chive on

THIS RED BANNER HAS GOT TO GO!!!!!

“We all have cell phones”

Yeah, and we get a new one every 2 years (or whenever I take my phone on a salt-water fishing trip).  But when was the last time you bought an SLR, a point&shoot, a video camera, a tape recorder, a EDC flashlight, a chess game, a weather radio, a stand-along video game, a paper calendar, a day-timer, a deck of cards, a scrap book, paper maps, a newspaper to do the Sunday crossword, or a landline phone?  That’s kind of a lot of stuff NOT being produced because of that 4.5-ounce smart phone.

“Should i drive the same old car (that gets 15mpg), or buy an efficient car (sending old car to scrap/ bringing another into the world)”

Minimize your total costs.  No one will sell you a $15,000 Corolla or Yaris if it took them more than $15,000 of energy and natural resources to produce it.  So at $2.50/gallon, 15,000 miles/year, but 40 mpg instead of 15 mpg and no repairs for the first 100,000 miles versus $1000+/year?  You come out ahead in <6 years.  And you spend those 6 years driving a newer, more reliable, quieter car.  It wasn’t until I was 28 that figured that math out.  And ever since, I’ve spent far less time, broken down by the side of the road.

“But I hear that a huge percent of things being not actually recycled after drop off.”

My landfill and transfer stations keep adding more kinds of recyclables because people keep asking for them.  Then, where they’re collected at the central landfill, they put them out for bid.  Anyone who pays anything (or asks for less than internal tipping fees?) gets that material.  Aluminum always sells.  Duh.  Newsprint usually.  Cardboard, sometimes.  Mixed paper, #1, #2, steel?  They don’t get bid on and end up in the landfill.  YMMV.  Your State or county may have mandates or incentives.

“Every plastic thing I throw away will be buried for the next 1000 years”

I’m glad to someone, somewhere is sequestering some carbon.

Well, plastic is being recycled, but slowly. Some places do it. Poly and vinyl stuff gets recycled here in Ithaca, NY, but many places do not. Other stuff is always recycled, like paper. Worst case paper goes into a land fill where it breaks down. Paper and paper products are easy. I even keep egg cartons for my mulch pile along with sawdust, planer shavings, etc from my shop.

Steel/tin cans, even vinyl molded stuff gets recycled religiously. If not to a recycler, then it is reused as fuel from a low emmision extraction plant, though this does produce some CO2 into the air. Two uses…

Anyway, single use stuff is definitely a bad thing. Electronics, except for a 10 year old phone, well…I do not use them. I reuse most things for camping. Oatmeal is usually purchased bulk. Large packets of rice, I make my own jerky, reuseable zip-locks (2-5 uses,) canisters get recycled with a church key, tarps get used till I cannot, then they get recycled into dry bags after coating them and resewing them, then they get into the recycle bin…20-30 uses out of each yard at a guess. Cocoa is bulk. Coffee is bulk. Etc…

Some things I cannot recycle. Like frayed edges and scraps from tarps or raw fuels. I tried wood and steel cans for stoves, but have a hard time with the weight…you have to be out for a month to make these pay. Carbon fiber isn’t recyclable. Nor are fiberglass laminates. But they are chipped up and make good filler for some clay soils. Packs get used heavily, repaired and used some more. I don’t give up on a pack until it is fully destroyed: panels popping, straps failing, bottom ripping, and repairs falling off. I still use my old military pads as loaners. These are well over 40 years old, and rather ragged, being CCF. They still function. Generally, I average at least two uses from everything I cannot recycle directly. Or, I get something highly durable and/or repairable.

Like a car, I am not afraid of a $1000 brake job, but worry about a $2500 transmission rebuild(even though they wear out.) Tires (they wear) or brakes (these wear out) or fluids (they wear out) or other stuff, is regular maintenance. It all depends on what else is happening. My van currently is coming up on 150,000mi. It should be good to ~200,000mi, but I am now watching it. Anything major with the engine or transmission over $1000 will make me put it down. Nope, I won’t sell it, I just wore it out. I know that and would hate to screw over somebody. I keep fairly good track of it, so far, it has not broken down on the road and likely won’t. Still gets about 21mi/gal avg. Not real terrible. I am getting a Corola at 26mpg for around town, though. The other big Buick has few miles on it and gets around 24mpg avg. I don’t think it is properly broken in yet, even though it is a 2012 with 12000mi. I know I can get it to do better. Anyway…

Only about 1/5 of my gear closet is stuff I use. The rest is loaners. Or stuff, that was rejected for use. I do not sell that either…why sell a bad item? A lot is older but serviceable gear…just heavy (loaner.)