What to do about all that Stinky Trash

On a trip of the duration of a Grand Canyon River trip, garbage has time to accumulate and rot.  We cannot stress enough - the better care you take of your trash on day 1, the happier you will be at the end of the trip.  Take the time to do it right - if the trash gets out of control it is very difficult to get it back under control.  It is worth your while to minimize, reduce, and eliminate trash by every possible means.  Never toss your trash into the water or the wilderness, and do not cowboy bury your trash.  The River Gods will know.

 

Recyclables

We recommend setting up a "recycling center" in camp.  Your trip has been supplied with polywoven "rice bags" - label one "Aluminum" and anther "Steel & Plastic".  Make a small hole in the top of the two bags and caribiner them together.  The bags can be closed up with a short strap for transport.  Everything that is containerized in these recycling bags will be open to the air - rinse/clean out everything that goes in there.

Aluminum Cans

Generally, canned beverage drinkers need to crush their own cans.  Rinse cans out before crushing them - especially soda cans - if you cursh soda cans before rinsing, all that sugar water gets everywhere & that is micro trash that you can't pick up.  At camp, smash cans at some central location – preferably below the high-water line to avoid saturating beach sand with beer or soda.  Rinse the cans in a bucket filled with river water in order to reduce the smell and to avoid attracting ants and rodents.  Use a handy rock or other heavy implement to compact the cans until they are as tiny as possible.  The smaller you make the cans, the fewer of these bags you will need.

 

Steel Cans

Run the steel food cans through the dish line to get the stink-making food out of them.  Use the can-opener to take the bottom out before crushing it flat using a rock or hammer.  Some cans have bottoms that don’t come out, and you just have to smash them.  Cans and lids have sharp edges that need to be treated with extra care – included in the Painless Private is a 50 cal can called “lids, grease & broken glass” – sharp lids can be placed in here.

 

Plastic

Plastics 1 & 2 can by recycled in the same polywoven bag as the steel cans.  Clean out the containers completely by running them through the dishline.

 

Glass Jars

Some of the foods that we enjoy, like nice olives, sauces, salsas, pickles, and distilled spirits come in glass containers.  Broken glass is the last thing you want in your trash.  When possible, transfer your spirits into plastic containers to minimize risk.  Wash and replace glass bottles back into the same container they arrived in, with the lid firmly replaced.  If you put used jars back into the box upside down, it will be obvious which ones are new and which are used.  Broken glass should be put in the “lids, grease and broken glass” 50 cal can.

 

Burnables

These are obviously flammable goodies such as boxes, paper, and other combustible packaging.  Save these items in a dry location until one night (with no wind) when you have a fire and burn them completely.  The ashes go in the General Trash, but only after they are cold.

 

Organic trash can also be burned and the more you can burn the less stinky wet slop you have to haul downstream.  In order to burn organics effectively you need a HOT fire.  A low temperature fire loaded with trash will smolder and chase you out of camp with nasty acrid smoke.  Put the organics on TOP of the grill to dry them completely and finally burn them.  Small orgo such as orange peels and apple cores burn relatively easily.  Paper, cardboard, and other dry packaging are fuel for the fire if kept DRY.  Bulky wet organics such as melon rinds and steak bones take a substantial hot fire to desiccate and decimate.  Nothing burns completely in the bottom of the fire pan.  An effective trash fire can still take several hours, so if you choose to go this route, make sure you have at least one dedicated pyromaniac who accepts the duty of burning everything down to fly ash.

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General Trash – items that are not reusable, recyclable, nor safely burnable

• Leftover food

• Discarding food scraps

• Junk plastics (non-recyclable)

• Foil packaging

• Tobacco packs

• Blown out rain gear

• Other stuff you never want to see again

 

Start a trash at lunch by lining a bucket (grey, as per PRO’s color-coded bucket system) with a three-ply black plastic bag from your Lunch Box.  After lunch, loosely twist the garbage bag for reuse when you get to camp.  Place another bucket on top of the trash bucket in order to “sandwich” the trash bag between two buckets in order to rig on the boat.  Compress and reduce as you go, make your trash as small as possible – stand on it wearing shoes.  You should be able to fit the trash from a lunch, dinner, and breakfast in one bucket!  Use the propane tank as a “lid” for the trash overnight and when not in use in order to keep critters out.

After breakfast, when you are ready to close up the trash, place a few drops of liquid bleach on top and tie the trash bag up – making sure to get all the air out.  Line your First Garbage 20mm (or an available empty box) with a compactor bag from the Dinner Box.  Place the black plastic bag inside the compactor bag inside the empty box.  Tie off the compactor bag and continue filling the First Garbage 20mm box until full.  As your dry boxes empty of food, fill them up with trash.  Please do not put trash of any kind in the coolers.  Stinky organic trash causes a cooler to stink – forever.  It is a thing of pride to come off the Colorado River with well containerized trash.