Burning Trash.....
Just wondering how many people burn their trash. I'm talking about small candy wrappers, ramen bags, etc.
If you answer yes we obviously know why but if you said no or sometimes, explain why.
just like poop, all trash should be packed out
Care to explain why though?
And lets not get into the whole "packing out your poop" subject
Scat aside. I have always packed out garbage. I don't burn plastic or styrofoam for obvious reasons.
If there's a blazing fire going burning trash is a great idea. Just lighting up some trash and leaving it in the fire ring incompletely burned is annoying.
if there is a fire going, occasionally i'll burn trash, but ya gotta sift through the ashes and pack out what didn't burn in the morning, and you always end up w/ more than you tossed in because of others who didn't pack their remainders out
Gaiter
homepage.mac.com/thickredhair
web.mac.com/thickredhair/AT_Fall_07
not only do i use a fire to burn my trash, i also use it to cook with and to keep warm on chilly nights. my question for the anti-burn proponents is, when you get to town & dispose of your trash, how much of that garbage gets transported by big gas guzzling trucks to someplace where it will be incinerated?(thats a fancy word for burned). also how many of those "disposable" fuel canisters are taking up space in landfills across the country? oh and before i forget whoever is defacing the signs at shelters that request hikers burn their trash, please refrain from doing so in the future? they're there for a reason.
Signs at shelters that request hikers burn their trash? Where are those coming from? Never seen one of those.Originally Posted by rockhound
If there is a fire, I will burn trash that can be burned - not plastics - and will burn out cans for smell-control. As Gaiter notes, if you burn trash, you must sift the ashes and haul out what doesn't burn.
i will occasionally burn paper but never stuff like plastic. i don't carry cans with me but if i did i wouldn't try burning them. its trash it doesn't weight that much.
He who dies with the most toys, still dies.
nothing but wood should ever be burned in a fire pit. period.
stay away from shelters. ive never been tempted to burn trash in my stove
Just stop by the shelter, burn your trash and then leave....stay away from shelters. ive never been tempted to burn trash in my stove
Okay, you asked for it!
I don't have the data to quantify the idea, so I must base my decision not to burn trash on life experience and many years of working in a related field.
I believe that most areas today do incinerate their non-recyclable trash. Yes, it takes some amount of gasoline or diesel fuel to transport packed-out hiker trash (Ramen packs, Snickers wrappers, and so on) to landfills or incinerators. The incinerators are growing in number every year and will eventually be the only way to dispose of non-recyclable trash from all sources.
When we burn trash in a shelter fire-ring, it does nothing to help the environment. All it does is stink up the area around the shelter for a time, and usually the odor lingers for at least several days.
Trucking hiker trash to an incinerator at least has the benefit of having its potential energy turned into electrical energy by the incinerator’s electrical generators. You might say that one Snickers wrapper doesn't mean much in the overall scheme of the world. Consider the effect of your cell phone, mP3 player, digital camera, or answering machine on the environment. Those chargers you use for your devices usually remain plugged into the wall outlets even after you remove the devices.
Are you aware that a charger continues to use a very small amount of electrical energy even though a device is no longer attached? Phantom energy for one or two devices is practically immeasurable, but if you went around your home and counted just how many of these chargers you have, then multiplied that by the phantom energy drawn by all the users in the United States, you'd be amazed at how much non-renewable energy (foreign oil!!!) is actually being consumed by these devices. Even my own daughter, who is green-conscious, is guilty. Three cell phones, five laptop computers, three desktop computers with peripherals, two digital cameras, computer wireless network at home, three portable home phones, and ten or more other voltage converters and devices (X-box, VCR/DVD player, homes stereo, digital clock) are plugged in 24 x 7 x 52! Ever watch that little wheel turn inside your electric meter at home? Unplug as many of your electrical devices as you can afford to live without for a few minutes and take a look at it. Count the number of turns it makes per minute, then plug everything back in and redo the test. You might be surprised at the result. The faster that wheel turns, the more energy you are using!
But it’s only a Snickers wrapper, you say! It doesn’t mean much! Neither does one wall wart! Don't waste your trash by just burning it! Pack it out and put it in a trash container!! Keep the trails clean!
That’s my opinion! Pack it in? Pack it out! On the trail? Leave only footprints. Take only memories!
Grumpy Ol' Pops
Hold onto dreams, for if dreams die, life is like a broken winged bird that cannot fly.
burning trash is pure laziness. goes hand in hand with shelter dwellers
Anything is better than the gal who admitted in her journal last year that she buried her trash her first night on the trail.
If you don't have something nice to say,
Be witty in your cruelty.
I always do because I usually will have a camp fire going after I set camp. That's part of the hiking experience for me, the camp fire thing that is......
It's more than annoying to trail maintainers. Their most obnoxious chore is cleaning out fire places of half burned food, plastic, cans, paper. and foil. The garbage that most hikers leave make the fire places useless for cooking or even just sitting around. They also draw the vermin that infect every campsite. The sloppiness spurs maintainers to yearn for a ban on all fires.
Weary
that's why i have stealth fires. nothing but wood gets burned.
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