How to Dispose of Food Waste When Camping

Video Transcript

" Hi, this is Bruce Lessels from Zoar Outdoor on behalf of expertvillage.com, talking about low impact camping methods. So while I’m washing the dishes and trying to do it in a low impact way, one of the things I have to deal with is food waste. This is some old pancake batter that we need to get rid of and I want to minimize the amount of waste you have but you’re always going to have a little bit. Again, we talked about not pouring it right on the ground because animals will be attracted to it and it will also create a real unsightly and often smelly campsite for the next person to come by. So the best way to do it is to use the same hole that I’m going to dig for my dish washing and I’m going to just take that food waste and put it in that hole and that should be below the organic layer. Once I have that all set and I’ve done all my dish washing, then I’m just going to fill that hole back in and that’ll percolate down in the soil and that shouldn’t cause, long term you won’t be able to tell that’s there after a rain storm or two, so that’s a good way to get rid of food waste. Out west in places where it’s real dry in dry environments, that’s not an option, you need to carry all this stuff out with you, so you carry food waste as well as other waste out with you. But here in the east where we have a little more rainfall this is an acceptable way to do it in a lot of areas. Always check in with the place you’re camping and make sure that you follow whatever policies they have for getting rid of organic waste and non-organic waste."