Trashy Landscapes: Pack It Out
December 5, 2023 by Alyce Bender
Red-crowned crane traps its bill shut after investigating an old metal can lid. The bird did free itself after a few moments.
It is not uncommon today to pull up to a trailhead or visit a local park that is a known photography hot spot and find that the trash bins are overflowing, or the ground is littered with confetti, glitter, or other small bits of trash. At worst, I have come across piles of human dung, diapers, and wipes.
Many of us live in societies around the world that seem to live by single use items and items packaged in single serving wrappers. In a rush to save time, especially in nature, the corners of trail mix bags or candy wrappers or water bottles find their way along the trail, dropped or forgotten. Left behind, these plastics can break down from their initial state into even smaller plastic pieces. This effect soil and water quality as they work their way into the ecosystem web.
Before they get that far in their “composition,” items such as food wrappers are frequently found and investigated or even ingested by various wildlife. This could be anything from bears to birds, and all suffer for this sort of interaction with these leavings, whether becoming habituated to human food or death through swallowing the inedible packaging. Plastic bags taken by the wind can be whipped into the ocean where sea turtles mistake them for jellyfish, a common meal for turtles.
Essentially, trash in the outdoors is a problem, and it continues to grow as more and more people get outside. As photographers, not only does it fall to us to help protect these lands and environments we work within, but also to educate others such as our clients and friends.
One of the easiest ways to do both is to lead by example. Carry a spare bag in your camera bag that you can use to pick up and pack out trash you come across while out shooting. Encourage participants to do the same if you are photographing with friends or other groups, like a local camera club. It doesn’t take much but can have a big impact.
I remember picking up a few candy wrappers that had been discarded on a trail I frequented while living in Japan. Next thing I know I have a group of older, local Japanese women who had come up behind me and started thanking me greatly for showing such respect to their land.
Additionally, changing how you prepare for the outdoors can also help lessen the amount of trash created. Consider reusable/rechargeable hand warmers instead of the single-use heat squares. Those disposable hand warmers have a place in an emergency kit, but for everyday use they are not ideal as the entire thing (wrapper and heater) gets tossed at the end of the day. That can lead to a huge amount of waste after a weeklong trip to a cold climate. Never mind the number of them I have seen sprinkled along trails as they fall out of pockets unnoticed since they don’t have wrist bands.
So, when out, let’s all pitch in together and not only create less waste but pack out waste left by others. Park staff across the country are already overworked, so let’s help them not have to deal with things like overflowing trash cans because people were too lazy to pack out the trash they created while gazing at the magnificent Teton Range.
Bear safe trash can no longer able to close due to overflow of trash as people continued to pile trash into it rather than carry the trash back inside the Jackson Lodge (outside of frame, directly behind photographer by about 100 ft/30m.
