Leave no Trace...Really?

While relaxing in the Highland center post hike (The place for just hanging out for a while has grown on me) I picked up a copy of AMC outdoors. A LNT leader was instructing someone in the application of LNT principles and informed him that he could not dump his dishwater out into the ground, not even if he dug a hole first. His stance was that (I believe he reffered to the water as sump) had to be drank!!!!!! not discarded. First off I'm not a proponent on LNT to be honest, but see some of the practices of LNT to be worthwhile, but this guy is plain MAD. Seriously you LNT lovers, would you go this far? even if I wanted to save the earth, that "sump" would come right back up as quick as it went down.
P.S. You may go have dinner now.

LNT is a series of principals that are subject to different interpretation and different application depending on where you are.

While I've heard and used "gut sump" before, it is not drinking the dishwater.

First, thank you for the dieting help.

Second, I thought the article said Capt. LNT claimed this was ideal, not necessary/mandatory?

But no, I would not drink my dishwater. And not just because I let my dog do the pre-rinse on our plates.

I'm not sure this would be considered "drinking my dish water" but when I'm backpacking I have one bowl to use. When I've finished whatever meal is in it, I add water (usually it is hot for tea), then slosh the water in my bowl, then drink it. If I'm also drinking tea, I use the tea bag for a little scrubbing power. I get hydrated and also LNT. If the bowl needs a second rinsing, I might not drink it but will broadcast the liquid. I'm not bragging, it's just the way I learned and I don't mind it at all. Can't say the same about others I'm with, though.

Most of my meals are vegetarian. If I had a non-vegetarian meal I might add some backpacking cleaner to my second rinse.

I'm not sure why the angst. You scrape and eat as much as possible off the bottom & sides of your pot with your spoon. You pour a small amount of water in the pot, scrape again, and drink the couple of sips. Hey, you just ate it for dinner; if it was good then it's good now.

A quarter square of paper towel (maybe 2 squares if you had really gloppy stuff) to polish the inside of the pot and you're done. The paper towel squares go into your garbage bag.

What's to dump?

If and when you absolutely must use soap, the above process continues with a couple of drops of Bronners in half-an-ounce of water and another paper towel quarter polish, then another ounce of water swirled to rinse. Those final 1/2 and then one ounces of water I do dump, well away from the sleeping area.

Either way it's gonna end up on the ground, it's just a matter of how much preprocessing it gets.

I would suspect they're referring not to dishwashing in the soap-and-sponge sense, but just the rinsing and wiping out of the pots. In that case, it is in fact a good idea not to toss it arbitrarily, as it will be full of bits of food and flavor and will attract wildlife. But as with all things, what you do has to be tailored to what you've cooked and where you are and how ideal you want to be.

I know someone who was fastidious in a similar way: they'd use the hot water from cooking their pasta, to make their cocoa. This minimized the amount of starchy water that got dumped. But also …*eww.

Guess it all depends on who's hands have been washing the dishes

(actually, no..I would never drink my dishwater!)

A little too far.

Sounds like just another AMC Outdoors fluff-piece geared toward your average Sunday stroller.

Simple solution to a problem:

I never eat when I recreate in the backcountry. Additionally, prior to entering the backcountry I fast for 72 hours in order to ensure that I LNT. This beats the heck out of "Enema Man" and his motel room cleansing actions as decribed in the seminal work, "How to Sh!t in the Woods".

That said, I always drink the effluent that is discharged from my dishwasher here in the big city.

Neil said:

That said, I always drink the effluent that is discharged from my dishwasher here in the big city.

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I think you're mistaking the still for the dishwasher again. I've done this often.

MichaelJ said:

Either way it's gonna end up on the ground, it's just a matter of how much preprocessing it gets.

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There are any number of pristine environments where you carry out your pee bottles, etc.

I went to a LNT class at an Appalachian Trail Conference, and the leaders had a list of waste items and asked which you should carry out and which you should discard. People expressed their opinions, but the answer was that for true LNT you carry out everything.

IMPORTANT - the leaders then said that they didn't expect anyone to do this the first time, the purpose of the class was to get people thinking about wastes and they would prefer that you do 10% of the stuff than decide the whole thing was stupid and do 0%. They also thought that your choices might become stricter over time as you thought about it. One might expect the authors of LNT articles to be stricter than the average reader.

Will said:

I'm not sure why the angst. You scrape and eat as much as possible off the bottom & sides of your pot with your spoon. You pour a small amount of water in the pot, scrape again, and drink the couple of sips. Hey, you just ate it for dinner; if it was good then it's good now.

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Exactly what I do with every meal. I think on the PCT I never remembered to wash my pot with soap in towns. Just did the scrape/eat/drink procedure, and all was well for 5 or 6 months. No need for soap and such when you're boiling your pot for each dinner. Same goes for a weekend out.

Will said:

I'm not sure why the angst. You scrape and eat as much as possible off the bottom & sides of your pot with your spoon. You pour a small amount of water in the pot, scrape again, and drink the couple of sips. Hey, you just ate it for dinner; if it was good then it's good now.

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Yes, this is my method also. Have used and taught this method for years and it works very well. Zero waste.

Back in the 1970's I was part of a 6-man cave exploration team working with the National Park Service in New Mexico. We spent 2 weeks in January working and mapping in a particular very large cave system in the Lincoln National Forest. The entrance to the base cave was a 200 foot squarish size opening, sloping steeply down to a level several hundred feet within the cave. We made our camp there in the dim entrance light, leaving the cave only to use the latrine. It was cold enough so that when we finished a pot of stew or other meal, we simply left the pot unwashed ready to pile in the next meal on top of whatever was left over. We had no problem with that, and created some very interesting and...ummmm, "tasty" preparations. I'll never forget that.

As mentioned, LNT is a set of principles not a regulation. Given some level of knowledge you choose to follow them to whatever level you feel comfortable. The education part is to instill you with some environmental ethics that you may not have considered before. The more most people are exposed to the ideas, the more thought, the more they tend to follow to the best of their ability. Experienced LNT educators certainly don't expect 100% compliance, though I have listened to some overly enthusiastic unrealistic trainers.... usually quite young ones with experience rather limited to ideal situations instead of the variety posed by reality. Creating a sump far back in the woods (at least 200 feet from everything else as suggested) to dispose of small amounts of liquids and filter out a few chunks to be carried out, of what absolutely cannot be consumed is acceptable depending on the particular environment (plan ahead and you won't have such waste... as one of the LNT principles). And so it goes......

You can do this style of pot & pan cleaning at home, too. We call it "seasoning."

There's a dump in the woods from the old Crawford house that's all broken glass,rusty cans, and plastic (yup...that recent)maple syrup bottles. I wonder when they started drinking their dishwasher.

MichaelJ said:

You can do this style of pot & pan cleaning at home, too. We call it "seasoning."

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Speak for yourself, Dear Husband!

And really?????.....eeew!

Now I have to rethink what I do when I rinse out Molly's food bowl and water dish. Should I be drinking that? The problem is she doesn't always clean out her bowls and dirt can get into her water dish.

When I did my OB course in No MN we did drink dead bugs in the water that we would haul out of the Boundary Waters after picking thru countless inches of ice. They were small but you could see their little bodies floating around. We did boil it and it never really bothered me. They were quite frozen in those -40 temps.

I recall on that course we each had a bowl, a cup, and a spoon. We would just wipe the bowl and spoon off at the end of our meals. We all survived to tell the tale.
AT home I just give my bowls to MOlly to clean up!

Maddy said:

When I did my OB course in No MN we did drink dead bugs in the water that we would haul out of the Boundary Waters after picking thru countless inches of ice. They were small but you could see their little bodies floating around. We did boil it and it never really bothered me. They were quite frozen in those -40 temps.

I recall on that course we each had a bowl, a cup, and a spoon. We would just wipe the bowl and spoon off at the end of our meals. We all survived to tell the tale.

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Winter is different--you store the dirty dishes in the freezer...

Doug

erugs said:

...[EDIT]... when I'm backpacking I have one bowl to use. When I've finished whatever meal is in it, I add water (usually it is hot for tea), then slosh the water in my bowl, then drink it. ...[EDIT]...

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Same here. It's not rocket science folks. (It also helps that I'm lazy and don't wanna have to putz around actually washing my bowl, so I'm a big fan of the ol' swirl-'n-swallow method! )

While we're on the subject of LNT, I though I'd share a story from our hike on the weekend of the ADK BBQ:

My kids -- Katie (14) and Adam (11) -- and I met up with Paradox to hike Giant and Rocky Peak. We had a good hike up to the summit of Giant, though the kids were draggin' a bit. Dropping down into the col between Giant and RPR, Katie announced that she had to pee. Adam and Paradox continued down the trail, whilst I got out the toiletry kit (TP and hand sanitizer) from my pack. Katie did her business, and put the used TP in a ziploc to carry out. (I had to end up using the ziploc that we were carrying the map in -- as I had forgotten to re-load this component of the toiletry kit. I just stuck the map in the pack sans protection, as it wasn't gonna rain that day.)

We hit RPR and headed back to Giant, at which point the kids slowed down even more, so I told Paradox he needn't wait for us and should head on down and back to the BBQ. When we got back to the trail junction on Giant, I stepped off the trail to water the trees and was greeted by several large clusters of used TP just sitting on the ground, with no effort made whatsoever to conceal them. W....T....F....!?!?!

I pointed out this classless act to the kids and as strange as it seemed to Katie to be packing out her used TP, she agreed that it was the preferrable alternative to littering the backcountry like these other jerks did. That's my girl!

Photos here.

All interesting feedback and I can see how LNT can have many variations and degree's. I always used that little green bottle of dishsoap and still do, just a couple of drops. The swirl and scrape method, I guess if thats your way good for you, not for me. I in my younger years took chef training and sanitation classes have me cleaning everything I eat with with soap and hot water to this day. I dig and bury, that includes my T.P., it eventually go away if buried right. As far as the methods and how far you go with LNT, thats your choice.