What!!!

I don't get it? Marduk's solution still produces a waste stream. How can this be any different from the original problem?

Unless I missed something, the only way I know of for doing camp cooking using pots, pans and utensils without leaving a waste stream is to take my two biggest cast iron pots and use one as a scrub pot and one as a disinfecting pot. This is necessary to clean utensils only. Once I am done cleaning and disinfecting the utensils, then I cook off all the liquid and scorch off the residue until is all ash or volatized out. This makes the pots unusable as cooking items until I can get them re-seasoned again, but it leaves no liquid waste stream whatsoever. I've done this using wood fires as well as portable gas stoves, and it is safe, effective and practical.

If utensils are not a concern, then it gets even easier. I just take the cast iron pots I use for cooking the food in and scorch out all the debtritous. The heat cleans the pot and disinfects it, and when it's done scorching it, then it is real easy to re-season the pot if needed.

I believe you'll find that this method was used to clean pots a lot more often than wiping them down with dirt back in the cowboy days. Most meals were eaten off the end of a two pronged fork or a knife blade, or just with the hands rather than fuss with plates and flatware, which didn't lend themselves to firecleaning like the big pots do. If you got beans, which were more common than just about anything else, it was usually in a cup, washed out with the coffee you drank at the end of the meal.

At least that's the way Grandad said it was for him most of the time. In fact, many was the time we'd have beans with lunch, and he'd slurp them out of an enameled cup just like he did on the range.