It’s almost that time! The excitement, the drama, the sleepless preparations are mounting and our hearts all beat a little faster with each passing day. What are you excited about? The fire, the art, the art on fire? Not me. This time of year, people like me and Nathan Aaron Heller (not pictured) can only think about one thing: trash.
Nathan volunteers his time to organize EXTRA, the network of trash drop-off points stretching from Gerlach to Reno to Cedarville. As one-man shows go, EXTRA is a big job, and it makes a big difference: instead of carting your cans and rinds all the way home, you can now drop them off and help support local businesses.
Who wouldn’t be excited about that? Hot trash! Love it!
So how does it work?
Just sort your recyclables and bag your trash, and take them to one of the drop-off points. It’s probably best to find a place that’s not overcrowded — Highway 447 in particular can be a pretty amazing traffic jam — so, if the road is busy, head for one of the spots in Reno or Sparks. Many of them are even open 24 hours during the height of Exodus.
What can I drop off?
Everything but poop. I’m serious folks (and not sure why I need to tell you this), no excrement.
There are drop-off points for bicycles, plastics (SPI 1-5), glass, all metals, paper, cardboard, plastic bags, household batteries (rechargeable and disposable), and nonperishable food and water. Please have your recyclables as clean as playa possible, sorted and de-bagged before depositing into the appropriate containers. Please deposit your trash separately into the appropriate dumpsters.
Phew! Well, I’m all worn out from the excitement. Talking about trash just makes my day. If you want to know more (and really, who doesn’t?), you’ll find complete information in your survival guide.
This is The Hun, live and trashy, signing out.
Burning Man is a Leave No Trace Event.
There is no garbage collection service at Burning Man. We are the largest Leave No Trace event in the world. This means that every participant is responsible for making the greatest possible effort to leave the Black Rock Desert in the same condition (or better!) than it was in when you arrived. That includes picking up Matter Out Of Place, packing out all your own trash, not polluting the playa and avoiding burn scars and oil drips.
Leave No Trace is one of the Ten Principles guiding our community. Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.
sadly, the link to the trash drop-off points is busted.
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This works:
http://survival.burningman.com/leave-no-trace/pack-it-out/%23.UgU9e1Pk9V8
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This works:
http://survival.burningman.com/leave-no-trace/pack-it-out
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Thanks dude!! It is now fixed.
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Is wadsworth the closest place to drop off trash?
Accoding to the link (and the map on the link) this seems to be the case?
Im organising a crew to intercept badly packed trash bags at exodus, and last year the most common response was “we can just dump this in gerlach right?” So we want good details to set them straight.
(Email me off is blog and we can discuss in detail)
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Hey Phil, great question. I am actually about to announce this week that there will be trash drop points provided by the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, so in Nixon as well as Wadsworth.
As for the extra trash bags, first off, thank you for doing that!! Such a needed contribution at such a tough time!
Second, you can tell them to ask the vehicles around them to take their bags, because they will at least need to make it to Nixon or Cedarville before dropping off.
I don’t have access to your email but I’m The Hun at Burning Man dot com.
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why don’t you just bring your trash..ALL OF IT.. back home with you ?
really, why not?
haul it home and deal with the sorting and tossing and burning at home where you pay for your own garbage?
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I like that some wood is recycled, but some folks with a trailer full of beautiful wood stage materials were trying to burn it and I suggested they recycle it and they said the recyclers were not accepting anything with nails/screws, holes or painted. They were going to throw it on the man fire.
Also I heard the man burn used 48 cords of wood. What a waste of our wonderful trees. Time to rein it in and balance hedonism with respect for earth. Thanks!
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“Everything but poop. I’m serious folks (and not sure why I need to tell you this), no excrement.” – Hahaha, that made me laugh! :D
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As a pro, I have to say that a lot of people really don’t care what can be recycled, they even don’t care where will throw their garbage as long as they got rid of it. Really sad :( I’m really happy when I see people like you and the others who left comments. There is still hope. Keep it that way|!
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