On this Page
Leave No Trace
Practicing a Leave No Trace Ethic is simple: leave the place you visit the same or better than you found it; leave no trace of your having been there, so that others – human and animal – can enjoy the land the rest of the year.
Tips and Hints
1. Plan Ahead and Prepare
For each item that you’re bringing to the playa, think through how you’re going to dispose of it. Have your camp tear-down well planned and practiced. Plan to send trash off the playa with campmates as they leave the event.
2. Reduce Packaging
Bringing less in means having less to haul out. Leave unnecessary packaging at home. Food often comes in layers of plastic and cardboard, but also cast a critical eye toward the toys and camping gear you’re bringing. Unpacking them before arriving on the playa spares you the hassle of bringing back styrofoam packing and shrinkwrap. Choose aluminum cans over bottles, and reusable containers over either of those. Read more in our Trash and Recycling section.
3. Rethink Your Food Portions
Prepare food in sensible quantities your group can finish at a single sitting — leftovers quickly become a liability. Coordinate with your campmates as far as what you’re bringing to minimize waste. If you’ve found yourself with a giant pot of chili and not enough campmates, invite neighbors over to finish it off. It beats creating a wet, heavy bag of trash that has to be packed into someone’s trunk.
4. Don’t Rush Packing and Departure
Don’t stress to hurry home. Long-term exposure to the playa will fatigue your body and impair decision-making. Also, when under pressure, we are all likely to make rushed decisions, miss details and leave things behind. If half of your campmates will have left already by Sunday, the folks left behind are going to have a lot more work to do. If someone has to catch a plane, make sure to start packing up even earlier than you think you have to, so that you aren’t tempted to leave before fully clearing your site.
5. MOOP Sweeps
As you’re packing your camp, have campmates walk repeatedly around your site picking up anything and everything that’s not part of the playa. Doing this periodically, through the week, will make it easier.
6. Do Not Use the Playa as Your Toilet
It’s unacceptable, unsanitary, and just plain gross the morning after.
7. Take Your Bikes Home
Do not leave behind your old bikes behind for us. We still have to dispose of them if you don’t, and it’s an expensive and time-consuming effort.
8. Be Aware of Very Small Items
No Trace really does mean no trace. Be conscious of spare nails or smaller trash particles that may be dismissed as too small for trash including: hair, matches, cigarette butts, feathers, zip ties. Remember food waste such as peanut shells, orange peels and egg shells are also trash. While you’re walking around the playa, make an effort to pocket all trash, including cigarette butts, and then empty your pockets into a trash bag later. After you pick up your trash to carry home, do a last-minute check of your site for cigarette butts, gum wrappers, etc. because many of those will be hidden under tarps, tents and vehicles.
9. Do Not Pour Leftover Gas on the Playa
This is toxic! You wouldn’t do this in your backyard, so don’t do it in ours.
10. Minimize Fire Impacts
Deserts like Black Rock are susceptible to burn scars which last a long time and are not easily cleared. Avoid creating a burn scar by not burning directly on the ground. Use a raised fire pit, or use fire shields to protect playa surface. Keep in mind that most non-natural materials (rugs, polyester, plastic, treated wood) are toxic when burned.
11. Minimize Playa Scars
Never ditch or build trenches around your tent because they can start soil erosion and create lasting scars. Make an effort to restore holes dug for tent stakes and anchors.
12. Do Not Take Artifacts
Artifacts should be turned into the Lost and Found in Center Camp with an EXACT location of where it was discovered. Many historical and archeological sites are found throughout Bureau of Land Management areas. Federal law prohibits disturbing historical and archeological sites or removing any objects from them.
13. Respect Wildlife
Do not harass wildlife. Remember, Burning Man is not a place for dogs or other pets. If you bring a pet to the playa outside of the Burning Man event, make certain to remove their waste just as you would your own.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Do I have to take my trash all the way home? Not at all! There are several trash dumps and recycling facilities in the Reno area who will process your trash, cheaply and easily. Check their schedules and rates ahead of time, and put printed information in your car or truck before you leave home.
2. Where shouldn’t I leave my trash? It’s unfair to make someone else clean up after your party! Please do not dump your trash along the highways where locals or highway cleanup crews will have to deal with it. Do not leave trash at local businesses or road side rest stops – they have to pay for trash disposal and shouldn’t have to accommodate yours. This includes restaurant dumpsters, hotels, gas stations, or anywhere else that is private property. Do not leave your bags of trash on the playa either; the volunteers who stay to break down the city have more than enough to do already.
3. Why not just throw stuff into the Potties? If it wasn’t in your body, don’t put it in the potty. Items that aren’t human waste or single-ply toilet paper have a nasty tendency to clog up the machines that are used to clean the potties. When that happens, someone who’s actually working while we’re playing has to get in there and fish it out. Aside from being a lousy thing to make another person do, it means potties out of commission and not being cleaned for that much longer. And none of us want that!
4. Can I cook on a campfire? Campfires are not allowed at Burning Man, and that’s good because they erode the land. In fragile environments such as deserts, fire leaves scars for many years and depletes wood supplies. Modern backpacking stoves are economical and lightweight and provide fast, clean cooking. You can get camp stoves here.
5. Can I burn my trash? You can burn selected items at pre-approved burn platforms. These areas are indicated on your playa map. A lot of things that might seem safe to burn can actually be toxic – they release really nasty chemicals that might or might not be visible, but which will definitely do harm to you and others. Check the burn page in the environment for more detailed guidelines.
Resource Links
Want more ideas for your clean-up plan? Interested in the ethics and principles behind Leave No Trace? Check out these great links:
- Earth Guardians have prepared a handy list of LNT tips.
- Did we mention that there’s a non-profit organization set up specifically to promote and inspire responsible outdoor recreation? It’s called Leave No Trace – The Center for Outdoor Ethics.
Greening Your Camp
So you want to green your Burning Man camp? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Whether you represent a massive village, a medium-sized theme camp, or stand alone as a camp of one, there are many ways that you can make your camping experience at Burning Man more environmentally friendly.
The most important thing you can do is to shift your perspective. We’ll give you all kinds of practical advice, tips and tricks, but the most valuable piece of advice is to look at everything in your planning process with a green perspective. The first step is to stop — and think. Learn and consider the 6 R’s – Respect, Rethink, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Restore.
With those in mind, how can you do things differently? Think about that question from the beginning through to the end of your playa experience.
Transportation
Think about how you get to the playa, with all your stuff. Consider ride sharing to reduce the number of cars going to and from the playa. Got a lot of stuff in your camp? Coming from far away? Maybe you could band together with other folks near you who would want to go in on a truck. In the end, it saves you money, and reduces the gas you’ll use, and the emissions and pollution you’ll create. You can find likely candidates through your regional contact or on the eplaya.
We’ve compiled some transportation tips just for you.
Materials
Think about materials you use to build your camp. Rather than using materials you might use once and discard, consider designing camp structures and elements that can be assembled, disassembled and reused year after year.
Rather than buying new construction materials, consider using recycled, repurposed or reclaimed materials. Do some research and explore the options for obtaining repurposed materials in your area. Or seek out somebody on the ePlaya or elsewhere that might have a dome or other infrastructure they’re dying to get rid of.
If you must burn elements of your camp, do not paint or treat them with toxic materials that would be released into the atmosphere when burned. And, if you must burn, consider purchasing carbon offsets to counter what you’re putting into the atmosphere.
At the very least, don’t bring anything to the playa that you aren’t able to take back with you. Consider inflatable furniture, or a metal-framed futon, which can be disassembled to fit compactly in a car and reused next year. Every year, tons of couches are left behind on the playa. Some people try to burn them, which is about the worst playa offenses you can commit. Please don’t do it.
Energy and Lighting
Power and light are an integral part of almost every camp. Many people take it for granted that you have to run a generator and lights to illuminate your space. Consider a bio-fuel generator rather than a gas one. Share generator power with your neighbors!
If you do just one thing with regard to lighting, please don’t use glowsticks! They’re one-time use, they don’t last long, they aren’t recyclable and they add toxic materials to landfills. If you need to illuminate yourself on the playa, consider a battery or solar-powered LED light string, EL wire, or reflective tape.
Gray Water, Composting and Recycling
Reducing waste starts at home. Whether it’s food and product packaging, tags, labels, boxes or whatever, get rid of as much packaging as possible before you leave for the playa.
Bring perishables sparingly and use them at the beginning of your stay on the playa so they don’t go bad. Learn more about composting and better ways to handle your garbage on playa, including how to reduce the overall amount of trash you generate.
Finally, dumping grey water (any water that contains or is mixed with anything other than pure water) on the playa is not only bad for the environment, and bad form, but it’s illegal. Learn about techniques for easily managing and getting rid of gray water.
Leave No Trace!
Contrary to popular belief, Leave No Trace is NOT something you do at the end of your stay on the playa. In fact, it starts before you leave for the playa, because that’s when you develop your plan, pick up supplies like magnet rakes and other LNT supplies, and set your end-of-event line sweep plan and schedule. It’s also when you carefully consider any items you’re bringing that could become MOOP.
It continues when you hit the playa, before you drive in your first rebar stake, because that’s when you place objects such that they’ll stay out of and/or resist the wind. It continues into your construction process, when you place tarps below construction projects to catch stray nails, wood chips, metal shavings and sawdust.
Leave No Trace takes place every moment of the event, when you never let it hit the ground, you MOOP as you go, and you even pick up other people’s MOOP. And you always carry a MOOP bag with you, so that you can play your collective part of this community, helping to keep it the largest Leave No Trace event in the world.
Greening Your Art
First off, thank you for contributing art to Burning Man. Art is at the center of our community, and at Burning Man, artists are the rock stars they should be in the real world. Whether you’re a veteran Burning Man artist or this is your first time bringing art to the playa, this section can give you some valuable insights and shifts in perspective that will help you make your art more environmentally friendly.
As a first step, we recommend you read the about the 6 R’s: Respect, rethink, reduce, reuse, recycle and restore. If you keep these ideas at the forefront of your consciousness while you conceive and create your art installation, you are sure to be as green as you can get, and garner the satisfaction you will have earned.
Materials
There are many aspects to think about with regard to the materials you choose for your installation. Of course there are practical and aesthetic considerations, but why not bring another perspective?
Think about your material choices chronologically, and ask yourself: Where did they come from? How can I use them the most efficiently? Where will they end up when I’m done?
Purchase or acquire materials from socially and environmentally conscious sources. Wherever possible, reuse, repurpose and recycle materials, rather than buying new. While it can be more challenging to use repurposed materials, it’s more creatively interesting and compelling to see how you can affect the lifecycle of an object by transmogrifying its purpose. You’d be surprised how many companies (let alone individuals) are offering used and repurposed materials. Do some research and explore the options for obtaining repurposed materials in your area.
It’s during your planning phase that it’s most important to think about the end-game — where will your materials end up? Landfill? Repurposed elsewhere? Burned? What’s the most environmentally friendly choice you can make? Many organizations accept donations. Burners Without Borders conducts a construction-grade lumber reclaiming project at the end of the event now, for example.
To Burn or Not to Burn?
Burning of art on the playa amounts to about 1% of the total environmental impact of the Burning Man experience. Don’t let people shame you into not burning your artwork, if that’s your desire.
If you do choose to burn your art, it’s critical you plan to avoid using toxic materials or paint that would be released into the atmosphere. Paint, very bad to burn. Plastics, very very bad. Learn more on our burning page.
We suggest calculating the emissions impact of your burn and purchasing carbon offsets to counter your environmental footprint.
Lighting and Power
You absolutely must light your installation at night, even when it’s just a construction site during your setup phase. People crash into unlit art projects every year, and it makes for a pretty nasty way to spend your Burning Man. You don’t want to live with the guilt of having injured somebody, do you?
Hint: glowsticks are bad bad bad.
In many cases, it’s necessary to provide power to your installation. Rather than defaulting to gas-powered generators, look at biodiesel generators, solar, people power or other options.
Digging Holes in the Playa
Sometimes you have to dig holes in the playa for your installation. It’s imperative that you save the dirt you remove (using a burlap sack, compactor bag or contractor bag works), so you can replace it once you’re done. And remember to tamp it flat. Adding water as you replace the soil helps settle it in place.
Most importantly, you must not dig holes in the playa larger than 3 cubic feet. That could be 1′ square and 3′ deep, or 3′ square and 1′ deep. Or 1.5′ square and deep. You get the idea. Reason being, any hole larger than that will not stay flush with the rest of the playa once it’s refilled, resulting in a permanent divot in the playa, which is not only leaving a trace, but leaving a dangerous one for the innumerable vehicles (from motorcycles to ATV’s to rocket cars) that zip across the playa year round.
Leave No Trace
One of the biggest MOOP factors on the playa is construction materials. Wood chips, splinters, nails, screws and sawdust. Yes, all of those are MOOP. Anything not of the playa itself is considered MOOP, folks. Bring a magnet rake with you if you’re doing metal work, including welding, grinding, screws, nails, staples — magnet rakes are a great way to clean up metal quickly and easily.
When you’re building, use tarps or other coverings to catch splinters, metal shavings and sawdust. Yes, it can be a pain to deal with, but it’s certainly better than trying to clean up wood splinters and sawdust off the playa floor. Easiest rule of thumb is: never let it hit the ground, and (like in any good shop or kitchen) clean as you go.
And it almost goes without saying that your installation should have no parts that could dislodge in the extreme playa conditions and become inadvertent MOOP.
Transportation
If you’re building a particularly large installation, you will find that your transportation costs constitute a very large chunk of your budget — especially if you’re coming from far away. That, and the trucks required to bring your artwork out have the environmental footprint of a yeti. Consider teaming up with other artists or theme camps to share the ride.
Burning Man Arts maintains a list of artists creating artwork any given year. Work with them to connect with other artists so you can perhaps go in on a truck together and share the load. Other options include hitting up folks on the ePlaya or ride share board and try your luck there.
Greening Your Vehicle
Mutant vehicles have been described as mobile sculptures cruising gracefully along the playa. Unlike stationary art, mutant vehicles are based on an actual mobile vehicle of some sort, whether that be car, truck, bus, golf cart, or an engine on wheels. So this page will give you some ideas on how to green your vehicle, making it more environmentally friendly overall.
As a first step, we recommend you read the about the 6 R’s: respect, rethink, reduce, reuse, recycle and restore. If you keep these ideas at the forefront of your mind while conceiving and creating your project, you’re sure to be as green as you can get. It’s really about thinking differently, having a green conscience, and acting upon it.
Fuel: It Makes Things Go
When it comes to your mutant vehicle, you have an alternative to emissions-heavy engines that chew up fossil fuels. Think about it: If your mutant vehicle is only going to be used on the playa (as many are), it’s only going to be traveling 5 mph, right? (It better be.) And if you’ve only got to crank it up to 5 mph, you don’t need nearly as much power as if you were opening it up on the highway, right? Right.
Consider LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) rather than a gasoline engine. While it’s still technically fossil fuels, it’s cleaner burning and less expensive.
Go biodiesel! Traditional gas-burning engines cannot be converted to run on biodiesel. However a diesel engine, as found in many buses, trucks and in cars from a certain German company with a two letter acronym, can run on biodiesel, sometimes with no conversion work at all! Visit Greasecar or Golden Fuel Systems to learn about DIY kits (around $600) for converting your car to biodiesel. More and more filling stations are providing biodiesel, as it becomes more popular. Fast food restaurants normally pay people to remove their fryer grease, and will be happy to offload it to you. Also check biodiesel.org to start your research.
Check out gasification techniques … there are Burners out there who are converting engines to run on garbage. No joke.
Fuel-cells: electric motors
Electric motors have some great advantages – they’re much much quieter than combustion engines and have no emissions at all! No smell and no smog to distract your fellow burners from your fabulous rolling art.The typical disadvantage of an electric motor is that it doesn’t have as much power, but since you’ll only be going 5 mph, that won’t much matter, right?
Consider a solar rig! If you’re working with a very small vehicle and will be driving it only in the daytime, look into small-scale solar panels. Camping and marina (you know, boats) stores offer small solar panels, and the equipment necessary to rig up your own solar array. And you know there’s no shortage of sunlight on the playa. A solar solution is also a great way to recharge your vehicle’s batteries.
Fuel-free: people power!
Why not use the community, and have fun propelling your vehicle by participant power! Rig up some bikes, chains, gears and wheels to mobilize your artwork. Talk about interactive art!
Don’t Be a Drip
Oil dripping onto the playa is MOOP, and very nasty MOOP at that. We don’t have to tell you why it’s bad to dump toxic oil onto the playa, right? Before you leave for the playa, make sure your engine doesn’t leak. Second, when you’re on the playa and parking your vehicle, put a slab of (secured) cardboard, a plastic tarp or an automotive drip pan underneath the vehicle to catch any unexpected spills.
Mobile MOOP
And don’t decorate your car with items that will easily become MOOP!
Got a Bright Idea?
Clearly we haven’t covered everything here, and Burning Man participants are some of the most innovative and resourceful people on the planet. So, if you’ve got a great idea you’d like to see added to this list, please send it along to environment@burningman.com, and we’ll consider it for inclusion on this page.