When visiting my brother in law and family while they were camping last year, I noticed that any garbage they produced, like plastic plates, utensils and cups, went into the fire to be disposed of. These people do most things in a rather lazy way...using an electric fan to get the fire going and what not. My question is about the environmental implications of this practice. Burning these types of things, as I understand, release harmful compounds into the atmosphere. Although it one resource about camping I read, it was suggested to burn camp trash and take any left over residue with you after it cools.

What do others do? Burning all the trash would be simpler that carrying it all back home and having it taken to a landfill and buried, but I want to be as environmentally responsible as I can be. What's a good compromise?

Boy, being environmentally responsible is a topic full of facts, fiction, passion, misinformation, and philosophy!

Narrowing things a bit, you're asking mostly about "front country" camping rather than "back country" camping, specifically about garbage and rubbish. Leave No Trace (LNT) is probably the most widely accepted practical approach to that sort of thing. Here is a link for the teacher in you: http://tinyurl.com/ge9ve

Here's the main site: http://www.lnt.org

I suggest getting a handle on the back country ethos of LNT first, then understand the front country application of that approach.

My 2 cents, setting aside all sorts of philosophical daily living types of discussion:

It starts with your trip planning - for example, I do not like including MREs in the menu for backpacking simply because they are extremely trash intensive. OTOH, as a practical matter, I usually have one or two in my Ready Pack and if I'm heading out for an impulsive day trip, sometimes I'll toss one in for lunch (usually not, but sometimes).

If I have a campfire in an established campfire site, I usually will burn paper and paper products. I almost never burn garbage (food bits), plastic, or metal (most envelopes/pouches have a foil and/or plastic liner). There have been exceptions, and I do my absoute best to get ever scrap of residue picked up and packed out for better disposal. If I have a fire in a back country setting, nowadays I usually don't put any residue in the fire. It's not a perfect world.

I find it useful to keep 2 - 4 thin plastic grocery sacks stuffed in my kit even for day trips. It's amazing how much better folks are at picking up after themselves if they have a sack to put things in (double bag and tie on the outside, usually) And the sacks are useful for other things, too.

It takes real effort to not be pigs out camping, but every little improvement helps. I suggest learning LNT practices, setting a good example, and not turning into a zealot about it.

HTH,

Tom

Bag it and carry it out. <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Anyone hazard a guess what the #1 particulate matter is in our world oceans? No, not plankton or the deepwater 'snow' of decomposing flora and fauna. It's post consumer plastic <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />. There are huge offshore 'dead zones' where nitrogen runoff from agriculture has killed the entire biotic complex. Those nifty plastic 6 pack plastic connectors are more deadly to animals than all of our painfully constructed PSK snares and aluminum ingested ( it has a sweet taste to many animals) causes the intestinal tract to swell shut with a painfull and slow death following. Oh gee! this thread can get out of hand and I'm not helping. Suffice it to say my brother was such a slob. I returned from a camping trip and dumped his trash into his living room. "HEY! this is my home! So is the forest CHUNKHEAD!" end of story.

Not only do I pack my trash out, I try to clean my camp sites up also. Very few things get under my skin and # 1 is people who trash a camp site . Putting plastics, soup cans, beer cans, and other... stuff into camp fires really pisses me off. If you bring it in and doesn't go back to the earth, PACK IT OUT! <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Sorry for the rant.

Excellent thoughts, all. My brother in law is certainly piggish when it comes to any sort of house or camp keeping. As far as setting an example, my family went to local lakes to watch the ducks and geese this weekend, and I was revolted by the amount of garbage in and around the water. I made it a personal rule, which I hope my daughters pick up on, to pick up at least five pieces of garbage when I'm camping, or by a lake or river, or trail. My wife, a bit of a germaphobe, couldn't believe I was doing it, but I figure every little bit helps. We dissect all of the 6 pack container plastics that come into our house, just in case they do end up somewhere other than the landfill. I know I can't save the world by myself, but I certainly don't have to make it worse because of laziness, and maybe I can even make it a little better by cleaning up a bit of others' laziness.

You might not change the world, but you will make your little piece of it a better place. And by setting a good example for others (including your children), others might start to at least clean up after themselves. I salute you!

My policy is: "carry in, carry out"

I suspect some parks have a burning policy because a lot of people would just discard their stuff if they had to carry it out ...

DISCLAIMER The author of this post is a professional. Attempting to replicate this act may cause bodily injury or legal repercussions. ETS niether condones nor supports this activity,!!!!! I found a pile of trash in the local wilderness area with numerous identifying documents of the perpetrator. Said trash was returned to his place of business and deposited on his desk in front of clients.

Burning trash is not so bad if you pick out the residue from the fire pit. It can reduce the weight of metal conatiners that you pack out. Most folks that burn trash, however, don't bother to clean up. As far as the harmful gases go, the are mostly harmful to the folks around the fire. So what goes around comes around!
I generally don't build a fire except at campgrounds (car camping). I also cary a trashbag and cleanup an old campsite on my way out from backpacking trip.