Leave No Trace for Artists

The LNT GRID

  1. After checking in at the ARTery, you’ll be escorted to the site of your art project. The center of your project location is marked with a CD and a plastic marker (“floofy”).
  2. Additionally, the floofy marks the center of your Leave No Trace (LNT) Grid, which delineates the boundaries of your LNT focus. You and your crew are responsible to line-sweep the LNT Grid in its entirety before you leave. For most projects (unless otherwise stated) you are responsible for a 50’ area outside of your project footprint.
  3. Your LNT Grid will encompass the ENTIRE area that you and your crew and project occupy such as: art, staging areas, wood shop, metal shop, trash, recycling, burn barrels, etc.

MOOP Public Enemy Number 1: WOOD CHIPS!

Also known as splinters, bark, sawdust, and wood debris.
This is the biggest and fastest growing MOOP problem on the Black Rock Desert.

To prevent wood chips from getting to the playa in the first place, do as much pre-cutting off-playa as possible. If you must cut wood on-playa, do it in an enclosed area such as a shade structure with walls, and lay down a carpet which you can then roll up and carefully transport off-playa with the wood chips secured inside. Where possible, choose plywood over particle board when building your projects, as particle board cracks and splinters more easily.

Line Sweep Tips:

  1. Think of the grid in terms of the Red, Yellow, Green just like the MOOP Map.
  2. Think of your first pass as more of an assessment pass. If an area seems RED and becomes too overwhelming, mark the area and focus on it on your second pass. Try to keep the Line Sweep moving until you’ve assessed the entire grid. Do a second and third pass of your grid until it’s Green.
  3. Your LNT Grid will be designed optimally for 30 people standing 6 feet apart but can be done with fewer people. The more people you have, the more territory will be covered and therefore go faster. The most important thing is to not be further away than 6 feet apart from each other. 6 feet apart is the optimum number.
  4. Orange traffic cones placed at the edges of your LNT Grid work best at defining a visual boundary for your line-sweep team.

Orange traffic cones also work well to visually define a Red Area AKA “Hotspot” to come back to focus on.

Please read more about Clean-up Tools to make Leaving No Trace even easier.