Free/wild camping - toilet paper

[Jdsk]

A dog reading this thread would find it hilarious.

Would a bear be interested?

Jonathan (Asking for the Pope)

[pjclinch]

A single use plastic bag(gie)? Which then goes into landfill?

It's only a single use plastic baggie if that's what you choose to use.

If you really want to play the eco card, stop faffing about with toilet paper...
https://arkitrek.com/how-to-wipe-your-a ... left-hand/

[Mike Sales]

A single use plastic bag(gie)? Which then goes into landfill?

It's only a single use plastic baggie if that's what you choose to use.

If you really want to play the eco card, stop faffing about with toilet paper...
https://arkitrek.com/how-to-wipe-your-a ... left-hand/

I would want a secure and impervious bag.
I am happy with a decent burial.
Whether in a tip or a hole, the turd and the paper have to be decomposed by the same micro-organisms.

[pjclinch]

I would want a secure and impervious bag.
I am happy with a decent burial.
Whether in a tip or a hole, the turd and the paper have to be decomposed by the same micro-organisms.

You only need to get the paper as far as your main rubbish bag (which most folk will want to be secure and impervious): as noted, it is a non-issue in action.
As for "the same micro-organisms", there are finite quantities in any given location and a pile of poo plus paper will take longer than a pile of poo, and it'll take longer in an environment where you may not want the extra.

Like I said, if you really do a proper job on buying it in the middle of nowhere nobody should know, but as a general principle it is best to advise packing it out. I rationalised leaving it locally buried for years, but in the end I realised I was just rationalising away a job I didn't want to do.

Pete.

[Mike Sales]

I would want a secure and impervious bag.
I am happy with a decent burial.
Whether in a tip or a hole, the turd and the paper have to be decomposed by the same micro-organisms.

You only need to get the paper as far as your main rubbish bag (which most folk will want to be secure and impervious): as noted, it is a non-issue in action.
As for "the same micro-organisms", there are finite quantities in any given location and a pile of poo plus paper will take longer than a pile of poo, and it'll take longer in an environment where you may not want the extra.

Like I said, if you really do a proper job on buying it in the middle of nowhere nobody should know, but as a general principle it is best to advise packing it out. I rationalised leaving it locally buried for years, but in the end I realised I was just rationalising away a job I didn't want to do.

Pete.

Are not the decomposers in the municipal tip already busy with all the other discarded rubbish, then?
These things do not disappear unaided, in the ground or tip.
What variety of non-plastic rubbish bag do you recommend?

[Oldjohnw]

I understand that toilet paper takes about 5 weeks to decompose if well buried.

[pjclinch]

Are not the decomposers in the municipal tip already busy with all the other discarded rubbish, then?
These things do not disappear unaided, in the ground or tip.
What variety of non-plastic rubbish bag do you recommend?

At the local tip you have a fenced off place where you know it's horrible. It doesn't necessarily make sense to spread that out.

I didn't say "not plastic", I said nobody's forcing you to make it single use plastic. So you could use any of the plastic wrappers that your food came in and make them multiple use. Or, since you just need to get from the "area of operations" back to your main rubbish bag, a paper bag would be fine for that 100m or so. Or you could go for biodegradable baggies as used for kerb-side food waste caddies.

Look at it from a more detached viewpoint and you'll see that you can play non-expert arguments any way you want to come to your preferred conclusion. Once I'd realised I was rationalising my answers to arrive at "I don't really want to walk around with second hand loo roll if I can avoid it" I decided to go for the external advice of park rangers etc., and started packing it out. Style has not been cramped.

Pete.

[Pebble]

I understand that toilet paper takes about 5 weeks to decompose if well buried.

That may be the case on good farmland, but where we wild camp in the hills could be very different - at the worst bury it in peat bog and it may be well preserved for 5 millennia

------------------

still find this obsession with toilet paper a little bizarre, why do people who go wild camping take the stuff with them, always plenty of natural alternatives to use - people who work outside in the hills and forestry don't go about with a pack of toilet rolls all day, or at least I have never seen anyone who does. Not quite as whacky as folk hoarding the stuff at the beginning of the pandemic! We're a nation obsessed with overly clean bottoms - lol

Not sure which is worse, leaving the used paper in the open to blow about, or wrapping it up in plastic, carrying it about in your sack for days then sending it off to land fill to be preserved for eternity.

Not sure about burying the poo either - all the bacteria and insects that are well adapted at devouring the stuff are all used to it being left on the surface, nearly all the other animals on the planet just leave it on the surface.

[Oldjohnw]

I understand that toilet paper takes about 5 weeks to decompose if well buried.

That may be the case on good farmland, but where we wild camp in the hills could be very different - at the worst bury it in peat bog and it may be well preserved for 5 millennia

------------------

still find this obsession with toilet paper a little bizarre, why do people who go wild camping take the stuff with them, always plenty of natural alternatives to use - people who work outside in the hills and forestry don't go about with a pack of toilet rolls all day, or at least I have never seen anyone who does. Not quite as whacky as folk hoarding the stuff at the beginning of the pandemic! We're a nation obsessed with overly clean bottoms - lol

Not sure which is worse, leaving the used paper in the open to blow about, or wrapping it up in plastic, carrying it about in your sack for days then sending it off to land fill to be preserved for eternity.

Why anyone would go in a peat bog is beyond me!

[pjclinch]

I understand that toilet paper takes about 5 weeks to decompose if well buried.

That may be the case on good farmland, but where we wild camp in the hills could be very different - at the worst bury it in peat bog and it may be well preserved for 5 millennia

------------------

still find this obsession with toilet paper a little bizarre, why do people who go wild camping take the stuff with them, always plenty of natural alternatives to use - people who work outside in the hills and forestry don't go about with a pack of toilet rolls all day, or at least I have never seen anyone who does. Not quite as whacky as folk hoarding the stuff at the beginning of the pandemic! We're a nation obsessed with overly clean bottoms - lol

Not sure which is worse, leaving the used paper in the open to blow about, or wrapping it up in plastic, carrying it about in your sack for days then sending it off to land fill to be preserved for eternity.

Why anyone would go in a peat bog is beyond me!

If there's nothing else for miles around there's only so much choice!

Mountaineering Scotland have this... https://www.mountaineering.scot/assets/ ... eaflet.pdf
I expect it'll be better researched than my semi-informed speculations.

Pete.

[Pebble]

go wild camping in the hills and you could easily be on peat bog, West highlands, cheviots / southern uplands are covered in the stuff. And if you are in the hills any ground that is easily dug into is probably peat or simillar.

[Oldjohnw]

I must say I have spent a lifetime walking and camping in the Cheviots and Southern Uplands and never needed to poo in the peat, or use the bog as a bog! If I had I would take the paper out with me, or burn it if possible and sensible.

[Cowsham]

I must say I have spent a lifetime walking and camping in the Cheviots and Southern Uplands and never needed to poo in the peat, or use the bog as a bog! If I had I would take the paper out with me, or burn it if possible and sensible.

Don't burn stuff in a bog -- you can start a fire which can run deep under ground ( ie the peat is alight ) and very difficult to put out.

[Psamathe]

(Bit off-topic) Which reminds me of the UK's attitude to COP26

(from https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/nati ... ead-cop26/)

Ian

[Oldjohnw]

Like I said, only burn if safe to do so. But I would never use a bog as a bog.