Low Impact Hiking Sanitation

Video Transcript

"Hi! Now I am going to talk to you about low impact sanitation. Sanitation is pretty important because if you are out hiking for a long time maybe a week or two, you don have to take a shower every once in a while. So if you are going to take a shower or wash dishes or anything like that, again make sure you are 200 yards from any brooks or streams. Also make sure you are using a vegetable based soap so that you are not putting chemicals into the soil. Again if you are just going to be washing dishes similar thing to disposing of waste, just come off trail, dig a small hole, it doesn't have to be big about that big is good and this way when you are done you can just wash all your dishes or whatever you've got to wash in here and just cover it up. And again, you are just covering this up so that way it will soak into the ground and drain away safely and the ground will take care of it and also, animals won't be able to find you if you have any bits of food in the water or whatever. So if you need to take a shower, again use the same vegetable based soap. It does the same thing but just fill up a couple of your water bottles with water like 2 or 3 and you can soap up and rinse off away from any streams. You don't want to do it directly into the stream. It's not good for it. So again, you can dig a small hole or let it go onto the ground. The soap is pretty safe. Just make sure if you are going to get sanitary, do it safely so you don't damage the environment. "