Recyling options & trash along our trails

[johnnybgood]

A great day hiking in the woods , enjoying nature in it's splendor , can be brought to a sudden halt when finding someone else's trash left behind along the trail.
Many times it's a recyclable plastic bottle , recyclable aluminum can or simply a paper product that should have been packed out in one's pack.

So , I will make room in my backpack using a plastic bag, to pack out other people's mess -- throw away the trash,... where it belongs ,and recycle those items that can be reused again .

I want to know:

How many Hostels along the trail have recycling bins for hikers ,like myself ,that would use them if they're there ? Are there places in most trail towns where bins exist ?

[SweetAss03]

Can't remember much trash on the trail. At a few trailheads I remember some trash but you are going to need a bigger pack to carry it, maybe even a pick up truck...hybrid of course.
I might be wrong but like I said I just down remember much trash.

[weary]

I don't see much trash on the trails -- either on the AT, or local trails -- but there is some, especially at shelters and whereever a motorized vehicle can reach. ATVers increasing talk conservation, but their actions speak so loudly, I can't hear their words.

But some hikers use any excuse to leave their trash for someone else to remove. On my walk north I found trash in almost every fireplace, much of it unburnable. One shelter had a big bag of hiker trash neatly nailed to the side of a shelter, where a caretaker could easily find it.

Winter backpackers seemed especially trash prone. Several times I have found giant sheets plastic, apparently used to close the front of shelters. Usually I burn what I find in a hot fire, often to the consternatiion of other hikers who think I'm killing the planet. Commonly I offer a compromise. I'll carry our half the trash, it they'll carry out the other half. No one yet has picked me up on the offer.

Weary