View Full Version : littering , is for kids
mweinstone
12-09-2009, 11:34
confess your childhood hikeing littering here.we all did it. now out with the storys. what have you left in the wood? and wasnt it only ever for the reason of weight? or sardeen oil concerns? who has done it for conveinyence? adult litterbugs welcome to post here with reprisal.
The Weasel
12-09-2009, 11:40
We didn't litter. We were taught (in 50s Scouts) to flatten the cans with a rock and then bury them. Bottles were broken and buried. We practiced careful "Leave No VISIBLE" trace except for where the bodies were buried.
TW
warraghiyagey
12-09-2009, 12:23
We actually pick up litter we see along the way. . . and even months removed from hiking season I still fold/crush garbage up into the tiniest possible piece possible before throwing it away. . .
ShelterLeopard
12-09-2009, 12:33
I never littered- always been an LNT advocate. I started hiking when I was 15, and my first hike was from Monson to Katahdin, with a group. I got my first trailname "traceless" from the group because I picked up every single piece of trash in the whole what, 120 miles to Big K? By the end, I had a huge bag of trash. (Got to send it out with a resupply truck once at our halfway point, then started a new even bigger one.)
Lone Wolf
12-09-2009, 12:40
i bury tuna cans and leave stuff like books in shelters
mweinstone
12-09-2009, 12:58
i leave huge dumps of crap.
I leave a cloud of noxious fumes
Chaco Taco
12-10-2009, 22:25
i bury tuna cans and leave stuff like books in shelters
Whatever, you dont know how to read. Wolf has a speaker hooked up to his computer to translate to spoken word. Thats how he has so many posts
Remember War Games? Shall we play a game?
http://www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/small/0808/greetings-professor-falken-war-games-falken-joshua-rnr-ticta-demotivational-poster-1218044573.jpg
ShelterLeopard
12-10-2009, 23:25
I LOVE that movie Chaco!!!
XCskiNYC
12-11-2009, 00:04
At Belter's Campsite somebody threw away an automobile
The Mechanical Man
12-11-2009, 00:16
We didn't litter. We were taught (in 50s Scouts) to flatten the cans with a rock and then bury them. Bottles were broken and buried. We practiced careful "Leave No VISIBLE" trace except for where the bodies were buried.
TW
Weren't you taught to BURN the cans first? :eek:
That is the "proper" way to promote fast oxidation and quick decay. :D
Never littered... if anything, I'll pack out trash.
I generally don't cover up my poop... I'll admit that.
beakerman
12-11-2009, 00:24
i bury tuna cans and leave stuff like books in shelters
I thought you jarheads ate the can and buried the tuna?
beakerman
12-11-2009, 00:25
I never intentionally left anything behind. I've lost a few things over the years. I used to misplace everything then for a while I lost nothing but now I'm lucky if I don't forget my pack.
I thought you jarheads ate the can and buried the tuna?
Marines don't mess around where food is concerned.
But we have been known to bury MRE trash in a 5-foot deep fighting hole when we displace.
beakerman
12-11-2009, 00:26
Well thinking further on it yeah I've intentionally left a ton of poo--never packed that out when I didn't have to.
Packing out poo is an absurdity. Someone got on my case for tossin a banana peel once. Someone got on my case once when I was cleaning up the shelter area of other peoples trash (some of which was plastic bottles) and throwin it in the fire. "I don't wanna breath those noxious fumes!" they said indignantly. I said "Oh, you should stand a bit back from the fire for the next coupla minutes..." The thing about leave no trace is you really cant actually do it. And no matter how fastidious you are someone comes along and one ups you by packin out their poo or something. It's more of an ideal to strive for rather than an attainable goal. Kinda like living a life without sin.....
Dang, I was going to say "nothing" , but I also got yelled at for throwing a banana peel in the woods.
I'm also a "picker-upper" when i'm hiking, have a nice side pocket on my pack that gets filled with other people's candy bar wrappers and such.
JokerJersey
12-11-2009, 14:29
Probably the worst thing I used to do in my teenage years was to just toss cigarette butts down or flick them off into the woods. I would always field strip the cherry out first and grind it out so I didn't start a fire, but then the empty filter would go either onto the ground or off into the woods somewhere. That stopped pretty quick once I joined the military and was forced to "bury" my butt in a 5'x5'x5' hole by an instructor. Only made that mistake once, after that, I've always pocketed the butts until I got to a trash can or firepit.
Funny that the military taught me so much about LNT principals...but not for environmental sake. They cared about it because it would give the enemy a chance to track down your position and to easily tell if a patrol had been through the area. Oh well...it still made me more aware of the impact I left behind.
We had to cut the grass with scissors when I was in basic. I don't know what cutting the grass with scissors teaches you about the enemy....I'll tell you one thing the military instilled in me. Always use the hand rail when going up or down stairs. It sounds stupid but has saved me several times over the years...
mweinstone
12-11-2009, 15:32
we got to fill holes with our helmits and do pushups for left brass.
when people yell at me for burnning glass i tell them im going to carry out the hunk of slag rather than a case of air filled bottles that wont fit in anyones pack. they grumble. when they yell cause i leave pounds of others collected trash on a picnic table in front of a shelter with a rock on it,...i tell them cause the 6 hours i spent picking it up was my donation. and that its a short distance to a road in the opposit direction im going. when i stand in the trail burnning someones half a roll of paper towels side o the road above ground carpoo,...they yell what are you doing meanly.when i tie a long sapling to my staff with my knife on the tip and climb trees and cut string and bear roap ocaisionally falling, they laugh and dont help or offer to spot me. witch is cool. then when they see me like a pigion pecking at every peice of glass and foil at a fire pit for hours, their annoyed again. i love the attentions.
We had to cut the grass with scissors when I was in basic. I don't know what cutting the grass with scissors teaches you about the enemy.... .
And you still don't know?????
Wise Old Owl
12-11-2009, 20:18
Dang, I was going to say "nothing" , but I also got yelled at for throwing a banana peel in the woods.
I'm also a "picker-upper" when i'm hiking, have a nice side pocket on my pack that gets filled with other people's candy bar wrappers and such.
I got BEEPED for tossing a apple core onto the center of a circle ramp.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4ozVMxzNAA
confess your childhood hikeing littering here.we all did it. now out with the storys. what have you left in the wood? and wasnt it only ever for the reason of weight? or sardeen oil concerns? who has done it for conveinyence? adult litterbugs welcome to post here with reprisal.
Are you kidding?
I grew up in the 70s. I was completely indoctrinated with environmental messages. I still remember watching a film on littering. Some guy sitting on a park bench in Central Park tossing one little gum wrapper. Then he tosses another and another until he's sitting in a huge pile of them.
The worst movie of all was set in Florida. They were bulldozing wetlands to build something. They set fire to the wetlands and burned baby birds in their nest right on screen for a little girl in elementary school to have to watch.
So I have always been very sensitive about littering and wildlife. And I'm even more so now that people are no longer indoctrinated (now it's just recycle recycle recycle because that means people will buy more rather than try to reduce waste). Littering has gotten worse.
You should see this movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVwuPSLx2Xc
i bury tuna cans and leave stuff like books in shelters
I dig up and carry out a lot of half buried tuna cans. I burn any books I find in shelters.
Pedaling Fool
12-12-2009, 12:09
On the trail and at home (I don't throw food in the trash) I throw non-indigenous foodstuff on the ground. According to the LNT religion this is a sin. Even oranges are not native to North America http://www.localhistories.org/fruits.html
I hope you’ll will pray for me, but I know many will curse me:sun
harryfred
12-12-2009, 13:36
I was never a part of any organisation like Boy Scouts or any thing like that but I did spend a lot of time in the woods growing up. I also was a child of the seventies any grew up around a lot of hippies. I never left any thing in the woods except apple cores. When I hunted I even picked up all my spent casings, and a lot of everyone else's. I use to keep my cigarette butts in a Band-Aid can (remember those). I did spit a lot of tobacco, does that count? I even was burying my poo back then mostly to bury the tp.
These days I still will chuck an apple core away from the trail. There is an orchard on the way to the trail head and If I walk I help myself to one or two of the fall downs. I use to spit sun flower seeds but after I saw how the trail looked after I made a couple of trips I stopped. I have burned anything burnable that I clean up at a shelter or camp site just because there is so much of it. I always pack out my trash all of it. I even strain out the food particles from my pot and pack that out. several times during the warmer months when I hike close to home you will see me with a trash bag hooked to my hip belt and using a set of mechanics fingers to pick up trash and take home with me. I'm getting to old and fat to keep bending over:D I tried to clean up others trash on my longer hikes but it slowed me down too much and started to add a lot of weight to my pack. I still never finish up a hike without having at least a little of some one else's trash in my pack.
On the trail and at home (I don't throw food in the trash) I throw non-indigenous foodstuff on the ground. According to the LNT religion this is a sin. Even oranges are not native to North America http://www.localhistories.org/fruits.html
I hope you’ll will pray for me, but I know many will curse me:sun
Orange peels rank among the worst of litter. Newspaper and other low grade paper left on the trail will mostly disintegrate in a few weeks. Orange peels stick around for months.
Banana peels aren't as bad as oranges, but still are obnoxious for many weeks. If you insist on littering with such things, at least toss them where they won't be seen from the footpath.
At home the best disposal of such organic matter is in a compost pile. Ignore the elaborate rules for composting. Just deposit stuff in a highsided, bottomless wooden box. When the box fills, start a second batch composting. After a year or two the first will be ready to be used as garden conditioner, and the box will be ready for another batch of vegetable wastes.
High sides are needed because I add an occasional newspaper to my compost and I don't want them blowing around.
Weary
I'm not sure I agree that food waste is so bad. I work at an organic garden and we toss our banana peels and orange peels everywhere. The following week, they are vanished. I wouldn't toss that sort of thing on the trails, though. For one thing, nobody wants to see it 15 minutes after you go through. Secondly, it provides food for scavengers. Native creatures already have food in the forest, so human food waste just provides a niche for non-native pest critters.
harryfred
12-12-2009, 15:15
I have to agree with the fact that food waste is not a big environmental impact as non organic waste. I also have to consider the visual impact of the hiker behind me. That is why I no longer spit sunflower seeds. That is also why I toss the apple core. Note also that some critters will dig at areas that smell like food, raccoons, skunks, opossums, bears, ect. That is why I am careful of even the food scraps in my cook pot.
I'm not sure I agree that food waste is so bad. I work at an organic garden and we toss our banana peels and orange peels everywhere. The following week, they are vanished. I wouldn't toss that sort of thing on the trails, though. For one thing, nobody wants to see it 15 minutes after you go through. Secondly, it provides food for scavengers. Native creatures already have food in the forest, so human food waste just provides a niche for non-native pest critters.
Throwing organic stuff on garden soil is not the same as tossing it on sod or on rocky forest duff. Loose soil contributes to decay. In fact an even easier composting technique is simply to deposit wastes in a trench dug through a garden. Cover each day's waste with soil. It decomposes quickly.
Weary
Pedaling Fool
12-12-2009, 15:28
Orange peels rank among the worst of litter. Newspaper and other low grade paper left on the trail will mostly disintegrate in a few weeks. Orange peels stick around for months.
Banana peels aren't as bad as oranges, but still are obnoxious for many weeks. If you insist on littering with such things, at least toss them where they won't be seen from the footpath.
...Weary
There are a lot of things that take some time to degrade, such as eggshells and corncobs. But just because it takes more time does not mean it’s bad for the environment. Not saying that’s what you’re saying, but I know that to be the mindset of many. As for throwing foodstuff on the trail it’s no different to nature if you drop it as you walk or toss it into the deep woods, but still I give it a good toss. :sun
...
At home the best disposal of such organic matter is in a compost pile. Ignore the elaborate rules for composting. Just deposit stuff in a highsided, bottomless wooden box. When the box fills, start a second batch composting. After a year or two the first will be ready to be used as garden conditioner, and the box will be ready for another batch of vegetable wastes.
High sides are needed because I add an occasional newspaper to my compost and I don't want them blowing around.
Weary
Composting, that’s what I mean. I’ve been composting for years, just doesn’t seem right to me to throw food in the trash, it just seems wrong, almost a sin. My compost pile is even simpler than a bottomless wooden box. In the back corner of my lot I pile up yard debris, i.e. grass clippings, leaves, etc… and put food into it; I obscure it with large leafy plants.
I found that if I weigh down the pile enough with grass and dirt that I dug up and then cover with leaves it keeps away the animals and irritating insects, such as house flies and fruit flies. I also put in sticks to creat air pockets that keep my pile aerobic without requiring much turning, but I love to turn it to see all the decomposers at work.
.
harryfred
12-12-2009, 15:50
I have a small lot but I compost all I can. It is not that hard. I burn all my newspapers in the colder months and compost some but sent most to the dump:mad: I just do the best I can. I live next to an open field and ground hogs, rabbits, chipmunks, and a whole host of birds help them selves to my cast offs.You'd be surprised at what potato apple and onion peals bring into my back yard. Note some of my neighbors don't like me:mad: Wait till I get the bat box up:D
Chaco Taco
12-13-2009, 20:26
I'm not sure I agree that food waste is so bad. I work at an organic garden and we toss our banana peels and orange peels everywhere. The following week, they are vanished. I wouldn't toss that sort of thing on the trails, though. For one thing, nobody wants to see it 15 minutes after you go through. Secondly, it provides food for scavengers. Native creatures already have food in the forest, so human food waste just provides a niche for non-native pest critters.
And bears! Pack out your food waste. People food can kill animals, esp the processed crap we eat on the trail.
The Weasel
12-13-2009, 20:43
Food waste left for animals:
1) Brings animals into closer human contact, endangering people.
2) Brings animals into closer human contact, endangering animals who must be killed for close-to-human foraging.
3) Makes animals food-dependent, causing animals to die when human food sources are lacking.
4) Brings invasive species into areas that can't prevent them
5) Is just a really bad idea no matter what.
TW
Yes, I cannot throw away food in the trash anymore. It feels wrong. I take my peels and cores home for my compost bin.
Chaco Taco
12-13-2009, 22:12
Yes, I cannot throw away food in the trash anymore. It feels wrong. I take my peels and cores home for my compost bin.
composting good:D
Takijeep
12-14-2009, 20:22
Some days I walk with trekking poles and my pack and others i have a fruit picking bag and a reacher/grabber about four feet long. the bag holds about 2/3 of a big black plastic bag, sadly some days in 7-9 miles i will fill it more than twice. I have gotten some funny looks over the years!!:D
Doooglas
12-15-2009, 07:26
We didn't litter. We were taught (in 50s Scouts) to flatten the cans with a rock and then bury them. Bottles were broken and buried. We practiced careful "Leave No VISIBLE" trace except for where the bodies were buried.
TW
Amen sir.:sun
Kidz today are playing Grand Theft Auto on a computer.
Their parents are idiots.
Gray Blazer
12-15-2009, 08:10
I watched the video last night for the first time. Notice how stupid it makes the other people look? ( I know, its humor.)
Gray Blazer
12-15-2009, 08:18
I watched the video last night for the first time. Notice how stupid it makes the other people look? ( I know, its humor.)
Oops, I thought I was posting in the Black Hiker Thread. I guess I'm not so smart myself. Is this cyber littering?
sheepdog
12-15-2009, 09:14
We always called tossing an apple core, "planting an apple tree". I've helped myself to lots of wild growing apples along many trails and road sides.
Trailbender
12-17-2009, 17:06
Probably the worst thing I used to do in my teenage years was to just toss cigarette butts down or flick them off into the woods. I would always field strip the cherry out first and grind it out so I didn't start a fire, but then the empty filter would go either onto the ground or off into the woods somewhere. That stopped pretty quick once I joined the military and was forced to "bury" my butt in a 5'x5'x5' hole by an instructor. Only made that mistake once, after that, I've always pocketed the butts until I got to a trash can or firepit.
Funny that the military taught me so much about LNT principals...but not for environmental sake. They cared about it because it would give the enemy a chance to track down your position and to easily tell if a patrol had been through the area. Oh well...it still made me more aware of the impact I left behind.
We weren't allowed to smoke in basic.
mbrameld
12-17-2009, 17:22
We weren't allowed to smoke in basic.
We weren't either when I went through AF BMT in '99. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the first to go through basic and that there used to be different rules back in the day, though.