MOOP Map Live 2012: Day 3 Results

10-9 and Sleep Dep battle for a particularly good piece of MOOP: a buried stake.
Photo by Vertumnus. Click for full size.

Hello all you MOOP maniacs and line sweepers extraordinaire! It’s an exciting time out here in the ruins of Black Rock City, where the Playa Restoration team is sweeping through the city grid at an unprecedented pace. They knocked out another 54 blocks in their third day on the field, making quick work of the inner blocks where you, I and most of our friends made our homes.

How did YOUR camp score on the MOOP Map? Read on to find out.

Hot spots: Wood splinters (above) and oil (below). Click for full size.

Stop Before You Start: MOOP Prevention Tactics

We all know we need to keep our MOOP under control in order to pass the annual BLM inspection, so Burning Man can keep happening in the Black Rock Desert. But actually controlling that MOOP is a unique challenge, and one we can only perfect through experience.

That’s where YOU come in, Black Rock City! Do you have special tricks for pesky MOOP like wood chips, gray water, burn barrel cinders? Please, share them in the comments. Here are a few of our favorites:

  • DO NOT BRING branches, hay bales, feathers, glitter, pistachios and other extra-MOOPy items. Not sure whether it’s MOOPy? Stomp on it, throw it, wave it around in the wind, subject it to a little abuse and see if it breaks into tiny little pieces.
  • Put a tarp under your firewood pile, and sweep around it daily.
  • If you’re doing construction on the playa, pick up some used billboard vinyl and stake it down throughout your construction area. Sweep it off daily, or after every major sawing spree.
  • Build a cinder-catcher for your burn barrel: Take a 4′ square of plywood and attach a lip around all the edges, at least a few inches high. When you place your barrel in the center, it’ll catch what falls out and help keep it from blowing away.
  • If you’re using carpet or fake grass, use a propane torch to melt the edges, so they’ll resist fraying.
  • Use mats or grates to keep your camp from walking in wet spots near your water jugs or showers. After the event’s over, break up any water spots with a rake or shovel — and if there’s hair and other MOOP embedded in the dirt, please, throw it away.

Thanks to the amazing nikOpeachZ, one of our MOOP Line Bosses, for these tips!

What else ya got, Black Rock City? Chime in below.

Day 3 Results

And here it is folks: The one and only MOOP Map.

Click to enlarge!
MOOP Map Legend

GREEN: GO! GO! GO! The Line Sweep moves quickly because it’s clean. Minimal time and effort spent in this location.
YELLOW: Caution! The Line Sweep moves at a stop-and-go pace. Moderate time and effort spent in this location.
RED: Full stop. The Line Sweepers are on their hands and knees. A ton of MOOP. Extensive time and effort in this location.

Lookin’ pretty good out there, folks. Today, the MOOP Line swept from 2:00 to 7:00 between Foxglove and Iris, and for the most part, they sailed through without a care.

Unfortunately, there were a few spots — especially those camps from 2:00 to 3:00 between F and G — that slowed our intrepid team down. Those yellow zones take a lot more time to clean up, but the MOOP Line powered through … until they reached 5:30, which happens to be a place many DPW call home for about six weeks of the year. Yes, that’s right, we left ourselves a yellow zone to clean up at our very own camp. But clean it up we did, with a shared resolve to Do Better Next Year.

Most of you out there know about Doing Better Next Year, and overall today was a big win for YOU, Black Rock City. Congratulations on keeping it clean, and here’s to all of us who keep finding new ways to stop MOOP and fight the Leave No Trace battle!

For now, this is The Hun, fighting on.

Photo by Vertumnus!

About the author: The Hun

The Hun

The Hun, also known as J.H. Fearless, has been blogging for Burning Man (and many other outlets) since 2005, which is also the year she joined the BRC DPW on a whim that turned out to be a ten-year commitment. Since then she's won some awards for blogging, built her own creative business, and produced some of the Burning Blog's most popular stories and series. She co-created a grant-funded art piece, "Refoliation," in 2007, and stood next to it watching the Man burn on Monday night during a full lunar eclipse. She considers that, in many ways, to have been the symbolic end of Burning Man that was. The Hun lives in Reno with DPW Shade King, Quiet Earp. You may address her as "The Hun" or "Hun". If you call her "Honey" she reserves the right to cut you.

55 Comments on “MOOP Map Live 2012: Day 3 Results

  • Liz says:

    Hand painted bed sheets. Bad!

    Someone brought one with and used it both as shade and as a camp sign. That thing shed pain flecks all week long.

    Report comment

  • FIGJAM says:

    The “Ash catcher” is a good idea, but you’ll have to put some bricks between the barrel and the wood or it WILL catch fire!!!

    Thanks all, we are green!

    Report comment

  • durgy says:

    Thanks again The Hun. We do our best to instill a ‘never let it hit the ground’ culture in our camp at camp meetings and in pre-plaa missives, especially with first-time attendees, but also with returnees that did not get enculturated properly. They say you can’t teach and old dog new tricks, but you can still shove their nose in it if they poop (moop) in the wrong place. Self-policing and peer pressure does still have a place in BRC even for LNT, immediacy and radical inclusion.

    Report comment

  • G says:

    My hint to deal with grey water? Easy!
    My camping technique generates 0 grey water. It is a whole different world out there. A shower is sooo default.
    Spray bottle and wipe, and baby wipes keep me clean, and smelling like a baby.

    Hey Hun! Is the trash fence the last thing to come down out there? Is it down now?
    How much moop gets pinned against it?

    Report comment

  • Magic Kristian says:

    Go, go, go… you guys are rocking the cradle of desert love. I’d say it would be fair that I swing by and MOOP your return vehicles to keep the cycle going.

    Cheers and keep up the good work.

    Hope to see some of you at DECOM SF.

    Magic Kristian

    Report comment

  • Endeavor says:

    What does the green and yellow lines together mean?

    Report comment

  • Huggy says:

    This is bullshit. Our camp is marked as red, but we had people around on monday who mooped for several hours (who picked up human hair for gods sake) with one camp mate who worked gate & stayed until tuesday and spent two MORE hours checking our land after she packed up. There’s no way.

    Report comment

  • durgy says:

    If you think you are getting a raw deal on the map, you might be able to make a better case if you have pictures of your site before the last person left. If you did not take photos this year, put it on the list for next year or designate someone to do that. Make your best showing so you are not put on the ‘naughty’ list.

    Report comment

  • Eric says:

    Any news on the success (or lack thereof) of the ‘Dirty Thirty” idea this year?

    From last year’s blog:

    “In future years, D.A. hopes that there’ll be 30 theme camp representatives — enough to form a new Line Sweeps team, which will MOOP its way through theme camp areas to solidify the connection between the experience and the leftover litter. That team will be called the “Dirty Thirty.” This year, our new experiment garnered five brave representatives: the “Fearless Five”.”

    Report comment

  • Dani says:

    This year I went through the dunes with my hands and spread them out to make sure there wasn’t any moop hiding in them. Next year I’m bringing a rake. Our moopiest place in camp was the kitchen. I had to pick up broken tortilla chips and other food bits on my hands and knees. Next year we will designate a couple people to do a kitchen floor sweep daily. I also bring a five gallon bucket with a tight lid for compost and we keep it near the coffee making to ensure grounds are safely locked away, right away. We are all green on this map, and that makes me so glad I spent those three hours mooping Monday.

    Report comment

  • ChrissyP says:

    As a burgin this year, but one who has been trained since birth to not only leave no trace of my own, but to sweep every new area I arrive in and clean up traces left before I arrived, we did not leave MOOP per se, but we did scatter a drinking water container on Tuesday morning before we left, so we had the sealable container to carry out gray water. Thank you for the clue about raking through that spot. It bothered me, and I appreciate this new information.

    To those of you who stay and clean up after this event, I am grateful to you. One of these days, I hope to be on your crew…. at least for one year!

    Report comment

  • ChrissyP says:

    PS: something I learned this year too…… on Monday, the 27th, a veteran burner gifted my camp with some things that had obviously been stored, at least since last burn…… as he handed them to us, the clear plastic packaging simply dissolved, in the wind……. I actually thought it may have been one of those burgin tests that I’ve read about, but I doubt it now…. however, it was pretty breezy that day, and I ran after the tinly bits, and we ended up with half a dozen of us crawling around on our knees, while others ran around stomping to catch the tiny, shiny, clear bits of dried out old packaging……… SIGH.

    Unpackage EVERYTHING.

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    FIGJAM – You pretty much can’t use an incinerator barrel without some sort of method of raising it off the ground. Most of the ones we use out here have rebar legs to keep them at least a foot away from the surface.

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Hey G! The trash fence comes down a couple of weeks after the event ends, right before the start of Playa Restoration. Right now, there’s nothing out there but T-stakes and traffic cones so we can navigate the city site. The fence does collect quite a bit of trash, depending on how windy a season we have. People usually moop it during the week (it’s a great place to find money) and of course we moop it thoroughly before removing it.

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Eric – Yes, thanks for remembering! The Fearless Five were a huge success last year and the Dirty Thirty is still a plan for the future, but this year with the increased danger of failing inspection, Burning Man elected to hire 30 more crew members that would be guaranteed to show up and stay for the duration. Dirty Thirty’s still in the future.

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Endeavor – The green and yellow lines mark a zone that was kind of on the line between green and yellow :) Sometimes it’s hard sticking to three colors, we tend to get a little creative!

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Huggy – What’s your camp name and address? I have all the info on what was found where. Maybe we can straighten this out. Please don’t call our work bullshit though ;)

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Dani, ChrissyP – YES! Thank you.

    Report comment

  • slam says:

    What is the purpose of moop map? I notice the same green theme camps every year and the same camps leave moop behind. Is there a fine? Slap on the wrist? Just FYI?

    Report comment

  • Due due says:

    It would be cool to have the BM people publish a list of the more interesting things they find during cleanup and restoration. I can only imagine the crap you guys find!

    Report comment

  • goner19 says:

    i did puke my brains out on wednesday…projectile style…i did my best to clean it up…looks like it was ok! i was worried. bile and playa makes some weird sh#t

    Report comment

  • IllevilleLNT says:

    I got these lizard terrarium scoops for $5 on Amazon. They’re totally amazing for getting small particles and fibers out of dunes or anywhere after being raked.

    Report comment

  • Marcia says:

    After spending nearly 4 hours in the medic cool-tent getting 4 packs of IV electrolytes for heat stroke and dehydration from mooping my brains out Sunday morning, I intend to bring along a couple OG wood-handled strainers with the super-fine metal mesh next year. Hand-picking miniscule slivers of crushed wood out of the playa crust ain’t fun, and there’s no way to make it easier without a strainer, methinks. Moop casts shadows that just don’t belong, I found. While walking around, that became my #1 default eye-catcher. Lots of moop is easy to spot – size, color, texture, shine, movement. Then there’s the insidious type like hair and organic material splinters, that tries to hide, and requires getting up-close and personal within 18″.

    Report comment

  • Anjaneth says:

    Hey, where’s the rest of the map? All done now? Can’t wait to see where we ended.

    Report comment

  • Josh and Cody says:

    Any way to find out specifically what the red spot is on our camp?
    Wood Chips?
    Oil?
    BURIED TREASURE!….?

    Overall a green Rating, BUT we want ALL GREEN… no red spots!

    Your loving friends from the NYrvana Village Moop Patrol. 2:45 and ESP

    Report comment

  • Franko says:

    two things from my experiences on cleaning up our camp’s site every year:

    1) we have seen people diligently clean their camps and leave, and then see people from other camps drive up and leave stuff in the previously-clean spot, thereby making the people who actually were placed and camped there look bad. not saying it’s a widespread practice of douchebaggery, but just saying… we’ve seen it.

    2) in case it helps others, i will share this: a few years ago i made up what we in our camp (the Reno Housewives) call the Super Mooper: i bought a standing dustpan from home depot (sort of like this: http://tinyurl.com/8dl9fcn) and cut out the back and and replaced it with a fine mesh screen. now, when we find a trouble spot with tiny bits of wood, hair, etc, you can just sweep at will into the dustpan, and then tip it up and lightly shake it to sift out all the moop. it really works well. we’ve lent it to neighbors to use, too, and everyone seems to love it. i’d love to see everyone making and using them!

    Report comment

  • Thumper says:

    Thanks! Looks like we were green! YAY.

    When we were leaving, the next camp over left their grey water and (trash bag like) container. We wanted to help, but didn’t have enough space for that much water in our exit strategy. Any suggestion on what we could have done here?

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    slam – Theme camps need to score well on the MOOP Map if they want good real estate. The placement team takes several factors into account when deciding which camps get to be on the Esplanade, and moopiness is one of them!

    Due due – Voila! http://blog.burningman.com/2011/10/tenprinciples/moop-map-live-day-7-moop-treasure/

    goner19 – hahaha ew.

    IllevilleLNT – that is GENIUS! Of course. I will pass that idea on for sure.

    Marcia – OMG don’t kill yourself, it’s just MOOP! Thanks for going above and beyond … and yes! Strainers are wonderful tools for big wood chips!

    Anjaneth – hoping to post more today!

    Josh and Cody – Thanks for asking! I will find out and post the answer here, so check back please.

    Thumper – congratulations on getting a green! That’s a tough situation, and a common one. Sometimes there isn’t much you can do, but you could always stand on a street corner, show a little leg (kidding) and ask passing vehicles if they have space. Too bad your neighbors couldn’t take it themselves, though.

    Report comment

  • Grace says:

    It’s very disheartening to see a red dot on our camp. I’m another who spent hours with a rake, and with my husband following behind, going over every inch of our camp. I was even picking up broccoli bits from where the camp behind us had dumped their grey water in our vacated spaces. Just so rude! I was afraid that their poor moop behavior would continue after we left early Monday, and apparently it did… in our camp area. Not cool.

    Report comment

  • Danielle says:

    Hi the Hun. This is in response to your inquiry of where Huggy was camped. We were at 2:45 and G, the name of our camp was Perpetual Dome Builders. Do you detail the type of moop and where in camp it was located? We really want to understand what happened. We mooped camp about a dozen times both during and lots at the end. So, please let us know what you found and we’ll come up with a gameplan for how to make our moop sweeps more effective, if indeed our results are from our own moop–not moop dumped or blown in after we left. Thank you for the restoration work you and the entire team does.

    Report comment

  • Michael Archangel says:

    Eagerly awaiting the results for Hushville and Kidsville, our neighborhood!

    Report comment

  • Iced Mocha says:

    Hope to be part of clean-up next year. Horrified at all the trash on the Hwy on the way out.

    Report comment

  • Kathy Curran says:

    Attention Playa Camps that cook from scratch!

    Our camp does industrial cooking for over 100 campers- 3 meals every day.
    This year we put down first a layer of visquine and then interlocking rubber tile matting in our kitchen.

    Worked like a charm to keep the wretched onion peels, chocolate chips and other tiny moop from getting through to playa. Also safeguards against oil stains or other noxious liquid messes on playa base.

    A cheap solution that saves time, energy and furstration.

    Try it!

    Report comment

  • Sgnoflake says:

    Hi The Hun,

    My camp, the Space Gnomes, also has a big red spot surrounded by green on 3:00 and F…. we spent hours MOOPing, raking etc. and we too are wondering exactly what was found in that spot. We take LNT very seriously and we’re very disappointed to see our results especially after the full day of MOOPing we did on Monday.

    Thanks so much for posting that info for us, and thanks for all of the hard work you and the Playa Restoration do! We love you guys!

    Report comment

  • Jeremy AKA CNC says:

    Thank you all you moopers!
    The Hun I was wondering if it is possible for us to drop in and give a hand for a few hours? My gf and I have been to BM twice now and have three children who love everything BM we share with them and we were thinking how cool it would be if we could take them out to the playa for a little bit of mooping. We live in Reno and it is nothing for us to journey out this saturday if we could.

    Report comment

  • I am the project manager of GonKiRin, and was the Pod Leader for Podzilla in Disorient. The chunk of Disorient right on the Esplanade, the one specifically colored red, was my responsibility. We were late getting off playa, but one of our group volunteered to spend an extra day on the site and said she’d grid and check it for MOOP. It obviously didn’t work, and I am completely humiliated and embarrassed. Please accept my apology for our fuckup; we love Burning Man and love the folks who stay behind to clean up the mess made by assholes like myself. I hope that the folks who found the mess my group made email me and let me know the nature of the garbage left behind. I want to know how badly and in what way we screwed the pooch. Sorry again. Please email me at ledartistusa@gmail.com. Thank you.

    Report comment

  • Irma says:

    I only just realised that the other link you put in the comments, was last year’s moop map, not this year’s updated one. I hope others are not as slow as me as it may make some think they have mooped badly when they haven’t and vice versa. I was all happy to see my camp was green, only to realise that was last year’s map. Our site this year hasn’t been done yet. Fingers crossed it is green as can be!

    Report comment

  • Huggy says:

    Sorry, Hun, I wasn’t calling the work that is done out there bullshit. Bad choice of words. As Danielle said, we all mooped the camp several times during the week, and then especially as people left. There was only about 15 people in our camp (we ended up with a large spot for some reason) at 2:45 & G (Perpetual Dome Builders), and we aren’t a messy group by nature.

    Please accept my apologies for the harsh words, I was quite upset when I saw the map (as was the rest of our camp), since we did our best and was expecting green in our space. The face the WHOLE space is marked red is especially baffling to us.

    Report comment

  • beckyandboy says:

    We were thrilled that our whole section was green! We were diligent as were our neighbors at making sure everything was picked up thrown away and carried home. I was quite disappointed to see how much trash and debris was on the road leading to gerlach. It makes all of us look bad. Its not difficult to wait till the trash station and help the local community out.. I do wonder if it would be feasible to have a local trash truck or two come through mid week and again end of week… maybe people wouldn’t be so lazy and would give the trash to the trash truck rather than trashing the community…
    Big thanks to all of you who stay behind to return the playa to its natural beauty.

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Grace – red spots happen, but if your camp is green overall you should congratulate yourself, not be sad! Well done, thanks for all your hard work.

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Danielle – Well, I looked into it and unfortunately because there were so many camps clustered together, I can’t give you a definitive answer of what was there. However, it looks like the damage throughout that block was pretty consistent. So I’ll give you the full list, and you can decide which things were probably yours. The list starts at 2:30 and goes toward 3 so you’re probably near the middle.

    broken glass, wood chips, trash
    glass and wood chips
    metal shavings and pieces, wood chips and shells
    burn scars (from where a burn barrel heated and oxidized the dirt)
    burn barrel remnants, charcoal etc.
    grey water spills
    wood chip “spill of dooooom”
    wood chips and general moop

    There will be more complete information available later, so talk to the Placement team in a few months if you need more detail.

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Josh and Cody – I’m still waiting on that report so let’s just say you did GREAT overall! Red spots happen!

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Michael Arcangel – those results were posted today!

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Kathy Curran – what a great idea! I’ll recommend that to our own kitchen staff!

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Sgnoflake – I’m sorry to hear you worked so hard and still had something go wrong! What a bummer!

    Like I told Danielle, I don’t have very exact reports just yet, so there are 3 things it could have been. You decide which one might be you:

    – burn barrel remnants
    – wood chips
    – oil stain

    Any of that ring a bell?

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Jeremy AKA CNC – How awesome of you to offer! We are officially finished, but you should DEFINITELY come visit next year. You can just show up, or you can fill out a volunteer questionnaire through the burning man website. Either way, make sure you check in at the office (on Main Street) when you arrive.

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    joshua goldberg — awwwwww, thanks for checking in! And thank you for the beautiful work of art you made. Sometimes things happen, and that mea culpa means a lot :)

    I’ve passed your message on to D.A. and, though right now I don’t have the details on what was left, I know the Placement team will have it eventually. For now, sleep easy brother.

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Huggy – I hear you!! It can be incredibly frustrating. I wish I could give you better detail, but hopefully you dome builders can put your heads together and find out what went wrong. I really appreciate that you tried.

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Iced Mocha, beckyandboy – Yeah, the trash thing is pretty incredible isn’t it? I know quite a bit of that MOOP falls off people’s vehicles. We’re constantly working on it, and I’m sure there are ways both of you can get involved.

    More info:
    http://blog.burningman.com/2012/09/environment/ego-on-the-roads/
    http://blog.burningman.com/2012/07/environment/the-burners-guide-to-leaving-no-trace-extra-extra/
    http://blog.burningman.com/2012/07/environment/the-burners-guide-to-leaving-no-trace-junk-and-your-trunk/

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Irma – whoops, haha, sorry!

    Report comment

  • Wrainy says:

    We were part of Black Rock Mafia at 3:00 and G, right next to Space Gnoes. We spent HOURS on Tuesday before we left scouring the playa on our hands and knees. We were the last ones left on our block. We still got a red spot. How can we get a detailed list of what we did wrong?

    Report comment

  • The Hun says:

    Wrainy – I can give you two options of what was found right in that area, you will have to decide which of these things sounds like something you left behind!

    Option 1 – burn barrel remnants. Cinders, wood chips, rust etc.

    Option 2 – wood chips (from firewood, construction etc)

    Does that help?

    Report comment

  • Wrainy says:

    Thank you! I passed this on to my camp!

    Report comment

  • El empleo de biometría y encriptación se está convirtiendo en la norma
    con la necesidad de mayor seguridad para los datos; sistemas de encriptación on-the-fly son particularmente útiles en este sentido,
    como pueden encriptar de forma transparente grandes cantidades
    de datos.

    Report comment

  • Comments are closed.