Leave No Trace Plan

Pre-Event Packing List

First off, our camp-mates will be instructed to pre-pack everything into smaller containers and to leave all packaging excess, trash, glass, stinky food, and MOOP-able things back in civilization.

Secondly, we’ll maintain 30% re-claimable space in central trucks and all other large vehicles for the trash to take with us on the way out. After that...

Trash Collection:

• Large Sealable Trash Cans. 2 for each tent, 2 for dome, 4 for Dance floor. 5 scattered around the camp. At least 3 of these will be for recyclables.
• Heavy Duty Trash Bags. Zillions and zillions.
• Ziploc baggies for our residents to carry in their camel-backs.

Dance Floor Maintenance:

• Industrial ground cover to keep the dust down, keep our gear from becoming disposable.
• Elevated fire pits
• Trash cans mentioned above.

Chill Area Maintenance:

• Carpet. Keep the dust down. Keep our gear from becoming disposable.
• Sealable ash trays
• Altoids tins –extra in case some walk away and get lucky.

Kitchen Clean-Up:

• Gloves, sponges, and plastic bins for washing dishes.
• Smaller sealable trash cans for each kitchen area + kitchen trash bags.
• Mesh bags for food refuse.

General Camp Cleanup Tools:

• Brooms and dust pans
• Cheesecloths for straining dirty water.
• Vice grips and other tools for pulling up tent stakes and rebar.
• Trash poking sticks.
• Construction/cleanup jumpsuits and work gloves.

Camp Maintenance

Vehicle Hygiene:
We’ll put pans or tarps under our vehicles to catch any fluids that may leak out onto the open playa. We’ll put weights on, or tie down anything in our camp that can blow away.

Daily Tidying;
We will have a clean-up team of 3-5 people daily (3 at the early part of the week, 5 Thursday through Sunday). Between us we’ll divide up the camp and scour the place for trash concentrating our attention on the chill areas and just outside them, as well as our camp living room.

Everyone will be instructed and encouraged to keep an eye out for MOOP. We will clean as we go. We will monitor our camp daily for litter to keep errant trash from getting buried in dust storms only to resurface during the spring inspection

Kitchens:
Each kitchen will have mesh bags to dehydrate wet garbage and a 5 gallon sealable bucket to store. This will isolate and reduce the burden of rotting food refuse. Burnable trash will be separate from recyclable materials.

We’ll strain wash kitchen and shower water before pouring it on the playa or, if it has soap in it, into our grey water collection system. We’ll use cheesecloth to get all the icky bits out of our wash water and into the trash rather than the playa.

Grey Water:
And how about that less than tasty water? The grey kind... Our camp plans on supplementing the BM port-o-potties with at least 2 of our own, leased from Johnny on the Spot (JOTS). In addition, we also intend to have JOTS truck out our grey water from our grey water collection unit (that our kitchens and showers drain into).

We are experimenting with a couple of grey water collection/evaporation systems at this time, but odds are, the majority of it will be carted off once near the end of the week (Thursday perhaps) and then again at the end of the event.

The Man is Gone! Time to Go? Not Quite!

Once all the tents are broken down, all tent stakes and rebar removed, (even the deep, nasty pieces), the trash bags are packed in the trucks, and the land looks bare—it’s time to get down to real clean-up. We will sweep our camp for every last piece of litter. Every feather, sequin, staple, and watermelon seed will be removed. In addition, each camp member will walk the camp, in rows like ants, face down to the earth, looking for any small thing we may have missed. Of course, we’ll check our neighborhood and clean up whatever we find.

For collecting and containing broken glass, nails, screws and other sharp objects: we’ll use Empty plastic water jugs and cut the top off (3" diameter hole) so that the handle remains intact.

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, Where Will All the Trash Go?

We’ll travel down to Reno to the RENO TRANSFER STATION (775-329-8822) as it will be open through the entire Labor Day weekend. [Info from the web: Hours are 6 a.m. - 6 p.m. Monday - Saturday and 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. holidays and Sunday. The location in Reno is 1390 Commercial Row. Charge is $4.75 per cubic yard. From I-80 westbound, exit at Wells Avenue, make a left turn left onto 6th street and a right onto Sutro Street. Make a left onto Commercial Row and look for 1390 on your left.]

Comments to: Nikhila Pai <nikpai at gmail dot com>