Say No To Micro-Trash!

When we were in Yellowstone last month Matt clued me in on a super, super simple trick for reducing the abundance of little bits of garbage--or "micro-trash," as he called it--kicking around this world, marring up the beauty along the trail, getting eaten by birds, etc.   Its something he picked up from Backpacker magazine.

The secret is to just not rip open a packet completely.  When opening a packet of soup mix or a granola bar just leave the end hanging by a flap rather than severing it completely from the rest of the package.

By doing this there is only one piece of trash to carry around or dispose of rather than one big piece and one tiny piece.

This might seem like a little thing, but I am here to say I see a lot of microtrash on the trail and around the campsites where we stay.  We never come back from a hike without some bit of paper or plastic in our pockets, picked up along the way.  I am sure that some of it is truly accidental.  Eat a granola bar, shove the wrapper into pocket, pull sun glasses out of pocket later and one might not notice the tiny bit of wrapper falling to to the ground, especially if its windy.

Of course, there are just jerks that litter on purpose and this tip won't do anything about them.  But, for the rest of us its a easy way to help keep all that trash in our pockets until we can dispose of it where it really belongs.  I am, of course, a strong proponent of the notion that little steps add up and if we all do a little we are actually doing a lot.  Its stuff like this.