Trash as far as the eye can see!

What I have done in past years to deal with this is to go on load control patrol during the exodus. As my driving partner has been waiting in line, I would get out, and go up and down the line checking on people's loads, and pulling them out of their cars to help me fix things that wouldn't fly (or would fly, actually). I've asked people in adjacent cars for rope if the person with the bad load didn't have any. It's great fun, and I've gotten some great gifts and benefits, not to mention the satisfaction of knowing that I really did keep some bad shit from happening (trash is one thing, a bike peeling off a roof at 70mph into the windshield of the following car is quite another).

This year, sad to say, I didn't do this. For starters, I decided that it wasn't very green to idle my big truck for 4 hours, dumping probably tons of CO2 in the atmosphere, so I left tuesday morning. I was going to go out to the exodus on Monday anyway, but the dust storm shut me down (mea culpa). I suspect that this year's problems were exacerbated (at least for those leaving Monday afternoon) by that storm and the urge to just get the hell off the playa.

I think that trash is another symptom of the out-of-whack rate of growth of the festival-- too many people who are just showing up with minimal clue of what to expect and what is expected of them, and not enough people (and decreasing due to it not being so fun anymore) being willing to intercede, teach or inform. We all need to teach each other what we know about surviving on the playa and not being an asshole, but it's pretty tough to keep up with the rate of new students at the school o' PlayaLife.

---but her point is valid and relevant ---

That's right, it's totally valid and relevant.

Let's get back to ripping on hippies and...uhm......shirtcockers.

Wake up Naomi!
The majority of BM attendees ARE ravers, I would say a good 99.99999999999%.

I apologize, and agree, too. Especially since I've seen Burning Man in so many mainstream publications, and TV shows that cater to the worst possible demographics for this event, it will get exponentially worse, with the responisibility shifting to the BMORG. The Porta Potty people will absolutely not do it anymore very soon. There will be increased presence by law enforcement, as we can't police ouselves anymore. I'm afraid the magic is almost dead, and now it's just a huge party. I was alarmed at how many people that I talked to had NO IDEA what the principals and common etiquette were, and had no interest in knowing. I strongly believe that a questionaire should be filled out before a ticket can be purchased, and even then this will continue to fall apart, unless there is a serious concerted effort to let people know what it's all about.

I cun't hear you.

I'm really starting to think about a camp that teaches knot tying-- it's so handy-- for survival, load control, and bondage, too!!! (that should get people interested... ;-)

Honestly, you need to know 3 knots-- bowline, trucker's hitch, and half hitch-- and have a rudimentary understanding of how to make a little package out of a load and then figure out how to secure it to your rig. But it is a learned skill.

I also like Crypto's idea of having a team of volunteers (I'd join), but I'd also like to point out that it's just one more way that Burning Man is externalizing the costs of their growth by shifting yet another responsibility for social chaos prevention to the festival's participants. Speaking as a past, present and future volunteer, give me a freakin' break and don't innundate me (us) with so many people that need to be taken care of!!! A few who will genuinely appreciate the help/lesson and resolve to take care of their own shit next year? Great. A horde of people who will come to expect that someone is going to come and tie down their Beverley Freakbillies load and wipe their butt? Um, I think I hear a hot spring in a forest somewhere calling my name...

Who the fuck can't tie their shoes?

There was talk this year in camp of having some sort of volunteer commintment requirement next year...you either must

be working on a theme camp
mooping for 12 hours

etc etc etc...

"If you have the STRENGTH to carry it in full, you should have the INTELLIGENCE to carry it out empty."

Rat,
I love that. kind of funny though that it was graff. ;)

you know, there are so many experienced people out there. if you can't figure it out how to transport something, ask someone to teach you. you know?

I agree that we should all take our garbage away with us and be aware of where that garbage will end up too.

On the other hand, the environmental impact of 40,000 people hauling trash across the country using more gas only to put the garbage out for the local truck to pick up and take to the landfill seems a little odd.

Maybe we should all still be responsible for our trash but a few landfills could be open for the few days after the burn to save hauling it long distance.

Phil

"It IS TRUE! It's known. Like you said, flag them down and pay their price. If the RV pumpers collect waste and get paid ...why shouldn't they have the same trash service. Pay as you dispose."

JOTS pumps shit.
They don't haul trash.


and they don't want our trash in their shit/

>>If you don't like my state then please don't come here!!!

I HAVE to come to NV. Where else will I dump my trash? CA is full, dude.

Lotta people vacation in Cali from elsewhere...I'm just sayin...

--Gez what a buch of whiners, shut up and pick up the sides of the roads they REALLY look like crap. ---

Says the guy with trash all over the roads in his state. Sweet.

Yes, I've been many times! I even worked and lived there in Gerlach! I will contact my local law enforcement what a great idea. Let's take it out of the "community" and take to the government.

WOW!

>> a little deffensive about an observation that CA roads are covered in trash?

I love how you're calling it an observation. Since you have decided to believe something, it's automatically an observation.
You are an authority on CA roads and you've been ALL over CA and all of CA's roads are trashy waste dumps.

The reason people are saying you're acting like a biggot is because you are.

>> Cry me a freakin river

Nice projection. When you're the one who's whining about CA roads, I love how you flip it around and say we're all the whiners when we're just holding your words up to you and showing you a mirror. Looks like the defensive one isn't me.

My intention here is to promote accountability and not support ignorant arrogance.

Keep your tissues for yourself. I don't need 'em.

And another thing... why don't we talk about how Nevada refuses (no pun) to RECYCLE?!

Well said sayr.

"If you buy a Laté at Center Camp, whose trash is the empty cup? "

it's yours.
YOU are using the cup. YOU are responsible for it's disposal.
once you accept the cup you accept responsibility for it. You are paying for the beverage, not the absence of responsibility.

if you accept gifts from someone it is YOUR responsibility to dispose of them. not the giver.
if you accept alcohol or food from a camp it is YOUR responsibily to dispose of it. not the camp.

Center Camp isn't your mom serving you and cleaning up after you. And btw, you can bring your OWN cup to center camp instead of using a paper disposable cup. Some members fought pretty hard to get that passed by the health department. It's pretty standard practice to have a cup with you anyway so you can collect gifts of drink or food at camps.

A row of dumpsters at Landfill and 6 would be a huge disappointment for me. I'm almost ready to say get rid of the JOTS service. Composting toilets are not too expensive these days, and the kitty litter in a 5 gallon bucket worked for a number of years, but the city is just too big and diverse for the port o lets to go away. And you can interpret 'diverse' as part of the population who is only there for the part-ay and not the communit-ay. It becomes a larger group of people each year and sooner or later a critical mass of the careless will determine the outcome.
I'm fearful that BLM will require BMORG to provide a recycling/ dumpster service due to the 50,000+ that will be expected in 2008. I hope it does not happen.

It saddens me that I have to lead by example due to someones carelessness. How did I become a leader so quickly?? Lead your own self dammit. I'm no good at it.

Ms. Dynomite,
You are completely missing my point.. I understand all of what you're saying and wish everybody who goes to BM was as responsible as you're pretending they're going to be.

What I'm saying is that since THEY'RE NOT (obviously) NOT reliable enough to not trash the surrounding cities, it has now become everyone's problem... mostly the BMorg. How does one deal with the problem?

As for the drink cup @ Center Camp thing, it wasn't a serious question... it was an illustration of a point and how the trash boundaries are very unclear.

So anyway, you have your way of dealing w/ it... preaching consciousness... has that worked so far? If it had, would this thread be here?

The provisions to make sure it doesn't happen again doesn't lie in education and enforcement, because that has been a big mission for years. It's NOT WORKING!

I'm not a big fan of (as you put it) "ignorant jackasses" taking BM down however many notches they are... but that has become part of the reality now. It may not be part of everyone's reality at BM, but when they leave and see all of the trash along the roads, it for sure enters their reality in a very visceral way. It's a "learn to live with it" kind of thing at this point. You can't uninvite them and expect them not to show up.

And as for me *comparing* the BMorg to "party promoters"... I'm not saying that's what they are - it's an analogy... and well, it's a similar thing. I can't count how many times I've been at a venue, post-party in the morning unloading my gear and watched the cleanup crew throwing MOUNTAINS of water bottles and other recyclable materials in with the trash and had NO intention of recycling it all. A boxtruck full of trash and 80% of it recyclable. The party promoters left that part (recycling) blank. And these are supposedly "conscious" people.
I'm saying at this point, the trash issue is left pretty much blank. It's up to the individual and that isn't working so well.

To compare it to providing water for people is silly. That hasn't been much of a problem since almost everyone brings enough water for themself and 2 other people. The trash problem is more complex.

Look, my point is that there are already alot of issues that have become regulated (or provided) because the BMorg has found them to be enough of a problem that they cannot count on everyone to practice self-reliance on their own... therefore rules and provisions had to be put into effect to deal with those issues. Water is not one of them. Ice is. Obviously not everyone has gotten their mega-freeze 4000 solarpowered deepfreeze unit that keeps things frozen at 110º in the desert for a week. So they have ice trucks.

And would you want me to list off the problem issues they have addressed by putting rules into place?
Why should trash not be top of that list if it's such a rampant problem?

>> Frankly, burning man is NOT for the average person, nor is it meant to be.

Sounds like elitism to me. You are trying to float a boat that's cut in half... eventually you will accept the fact that a 1/2 boat doesn't work. The world can't be divided into "your kind" and "everyone else" - AKA the "average" person. Everyone who considers themself part of a radical and revolutionary movement eventually has to realize that it goes nowhere until it encorporates the power of radical inclusion. Otherwise it's just another *average*, flash-in-the-pan group of "non-conformists" who rigidly conform to their own code of conduct and all of those movements have expiration dates.

Burning Man is not JUST for freaks, raw-foodists, feathery fedora'd faerie artists who make their own clothes and grow their own food or any other holier than clique of segregationists... it's for anyone who can embody their free will by showing up. I would like to think that eventually everyone will learn how to pick up their shit, but the fact is that not everyone does learn to clean up after themselves by age 5 (as you and I did) or even by age 45... it's a sad reality and we owe it to the surrounding communities to address it in a real way rather than dogmatically sticking to the radical self-reliance mantra on this one.

And before you go off again reminding me (assuming that I'm not aware) of the ethics and eco-etiquette of Burning Man, let me assure you that I've been living in this reality for a very long time. The remedial 101 reminders start to get annoying. It's not me who's complaining and saying "oh, it's too hard" or "oh, it's too inconvenient". All I'm saying is that there are obviously thousands of people who want to complain like that and be lazy about their trash. Their self-reliance cannot be relied upon... therefore it is now everyone's problem.

Tell me, what is YOUR solution to the unconscious littering crisis? Cuz so far I haven't heard one... just idealistic concepts of how everyone should be behaving.

My wife and I drive cars that run on waste veggie oil, but we're not going around telling everyone else not to use petroleum-based fuels... we're doing our part privately to leave a clean wake... but I accept that there are others who don't share our values and I accept them just the same. The world has rules because self-reliance is TRULY an illusion. Nobody in this world is self-reliant... because, it's always conditional upon basic resources and provisions. Trash will always be one of them. Whether you burn your trash or have it hauled away from your house, you don't have a landfill in your backyard do you?