Welcome back to The Burner’s Guide to Leaving No Trace, your guide to being a stellar Black Rock Citizen and helping Burning Man leave the desert spotless so it can all happen again next year!

But listen, I’ve had enough of chatting about how to be responsible, pack light, drop off your trash & recycling on the way home … let’s get to the good stuff! Let’s go to Burning Man and party down with Recycle Camp!

Do not board the Blue Duck, especially if you are made of metal.

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This truck does not exist. Shoop by Loopy.

In the last edition of The Burner’s Guide to Leaving No Trace, you and I got knee-deep into your camp trash can. That was fun, but we don’t need to keep wading around in it, do we? So this time, I’ll teach you how to take that trash and turn it into gold!

Did you know that there is a Burning Man trash economy? Second only to the gift economy, the EXodus TRAsh and Recycling Network (EXTRA for short) is a bustling system of collection points for trash disposal, free recycling, and charitable donations, all of which directly benefit Burning Man and local communities in Nevada.

How does EXTRA work for you and your garbagio? Read on to find out.
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When is a bus not a bus? Photo BY-NC-ND Chris Dunphy.

It’s getting to be that time! With Burning Man getting closer and closer every day, your thoughts are probably starting to turn to the important things: Costumes! Art! Tents, shade structures, bikes, headlamps, rebar, libations and oh yes, sustenance.

It’s a lot of STUFF to pack for just one week, especially when you have to pack it all out again. But you’ll figure out a way to have it all in Black Rock City — with a little help from The Burner’s Guide to Leaving No Trace! Read more »

Photo via BurningSky.org

Can you see the impending doom in this photo?

The diver’s fine, of course. It’s that gorgeous city behind her that is endangered. Burning Man may have flourished for 25 years running, but it’s more ephemeral than it seems. At any point, Black Rock City could cease to exist. But thanks to you, me and 50,000 people just like us, it appears year after year. And by following the Burner’s Guide to Leaving No Trace, we can keep Burning Man alive and on fire for ever.

Burning Man, as you surely know, is a Leave No Trace event. That means it’s everyone’s responsibility to pick up every piece of MOOP — from couches to cigarette butts, lost pairs of pants to abandoned glow sticks. Even if it isn’t yours, if you see it, you pick it up — that’s the way this works.

It works well. We are pretty dang good at it.

Each year, the BLM inspects our site to determine whether we’ve cleaned up after ourselves adequately. And each year, thanks to YOUR efforts and the efforts of the Playa Restoration crew that spends weeks pulling up rebar stakes, we pass. Read more »

UPDATE: In case you didn’t notice the publish date for this post, it was indeed an April Fool’s prank.  There WILL NOT be waste collection at Burning Man. Burning Man is the largest Leave No Trace event in the world, thanks to each and every citizen of Black Rock City packing out everything they pack in. And this tall order is truly an art form. Learn more.

Despite the Burning Man Project’s ongoing negotiations with the Nevada Board of Health (NBH), the NBH has recently decided to expand and enforce the Nevada Solid Waste Disposal Law (Nevada Administrative Code 444.5486) as it pertains to standards of operations for temporary mass gatherings such as Burning Man. As a result, it’s become necessary for the Burning Man Project to institute solid waste pick-up and curbside recycling throughout Black Rock City, starting in 2010.

Chapter 444 of the Nevada State Environmental Statutes, Regulations, and Orders, pertaining to sanitation, reads as follows:

NAC 444.5486 Removal of solid waste. (NRS 439.200)
1. The operator of a temporary mass gathering shall remove all solid waste from the site of the gathering within a reasonable time after the end of the gathering.
2. If, during the operation of a temporary mass gathering, the health authority determines that an accumulation of solid waste is a nuisance:
(a) The health authority shall notify the operator of the gathering; and
(b) The operator shall, within a reasonable time after being notified, abate the nuisance.
3. As used in this section, “nuisance” has the meaning ascribed to it in NAC 444.594.
(Added to NAC by Bd. of Health by R071-03, eff. 10-22-2003)

NAC 444.594 “Nuisance” defined. (NRS 444.560)
“Nuisance” means anything which is injurious to health, offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property, and thus interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property.
[Environmental Comm'n, Solid Waste Mgt Reg. S 1.12, eff. 9-21-77]

In its recent decision, the NBH has chosen to consider Black Rock City’s growing waste disposal situation a “nuisance” as defined in NAC 444.594. Thus the Burning Man Project has been forced to reallocate a significant portion of its annual event budget originally earmarked for art grants to create and manage a fleet of BRC MOOP Collection Mutant Vehicles (MCMVs) that will make daily rounds to collect garbage throughout Black Rock City, starting at 6am each day of the event.  These MCMVs will of course be designed with a creative whimsicality befitting Burning Man.

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