Destiny Lounge Cleanup Plans - Burning Man 2008

The members of Destiny Lounge are fully committed to Leaving No Trace on the Playa and we are planning to implement numerous strategies to achieve this goal.

Camp Infrastructure

In order to simplify the cleanup of the inevitable small MOOP that occurs when you have an inviting public space, we will have the majority of those areas covered with ground cloths and carpeting, enabling us to easily sweep up items during the day and roll up any remaining small items into the carpets and cloths upon our departure. This solution worked very well for us last year and we had minimal sweep cleanup left to do after we removed the ground covers. All the carpeting will be precut to our floor plan prior to heading to the Playa and the edges will be torched to prevent carpet fraying. We will have a camp chore roster, assigning each camp member specific times when they are responsible for the sweep effort and other recurring chores. The sweeping will be scheduled at least twice each day, more frequently as the Burn approaches.

Our kitchen area will also have a covered floor and will be contained within a portable shade structure. We use a 3 stage dishwash system to conform to health code. We will have a separate compost container for food waste, a burn receptacle for items we can burn in the public burn pyre, a regular trash receptacle for unrecyclable and unburnable items, and a recycle container for cans and bottles (glass is discouraged). These will all be sealed trash can type containers and will be secured against the wind. A large supply of contractor strength trash bags will be on hand for additional trash handling. Our aluminum cans will go to Recycle Camp on Sunday. We haul all of our trash to the Reno Public Refuse Transfer station after the event.

We will have a small, contained shower, which will drain into a modest evaporative area. We will be using a 12 volt pump, powered by our solar/battery system, to flow the gray water thru evaporative sheets. Small amounts of bleach will be used to keep the evaporator from getting contaminated or smelly. Showers will be limited in duration in order to minimize the amount of water used and thus requiring evaporation. We will have a reserve container for gray water which may not have evaporated by the time we break the bulk of our camp on Sunday following the Burn. Last year we only had about 5 gallons of gray water to haul out. We are planning our meals to be as water free as possible, in order to cut down on excess wastewater requiring disposal. All kitchen wastewater will be strained, run thru a filter cloth, and have some bleach added prior to placing in the evaporator area, and foodstuffs will go into the compost bin.

We are planning on a daily afternoon offering of cold lemonade and/or iced tea in our public space. We will be bringing corn oil based compost friendly cups to use for serving the beverages, but folks are encouraged to use their own cups whenever possible.

For securing of our structures, we will be using 1⁄2” custom rebar rings, which will be pounded into predrilled holes. We will reseal these holes before we depart.

Every one of our campmates is responsible for local policing of our camp. If we see any MOOP, we will immediately dispose of it appropriately. Additionally, we will regularly police the streets in front of our camp for MOOP and take care of that as well.

We have a 12 volt solar power system which we use to power several things in our camp, notably our two games and the evaporator pump system. We also run a small, quiet generator at times for some of our lighting. The generator is kept in a sound enclosure to reduce noise pollution.

Upon Departure

One of the best things about using the ground covers in our camp is the ability to pick them up and sift the MOOP out of the dust when we pack it all up. While this in no way catches everything, it greatly simplifies the cleanup process. The tarps will be carefully lifted and all of the debris funneled to one end where we will run it thru a flour sifter to remove anything that shouldn’t be there. The carpets will be rolled up and placed on the truck with their contents intact for disposal in Reno.

Each camper will be personally responsible for their individual tent sites and locale. Our tear down will be a group effort and all are expected to take part. Once the camp is mostly dismantled on Sunday we will do several “line sweeps” thru the area to pickup anything we can find. There will be a couple of final sweeps on Monday just before we all leave. In 2007, we were confident that we left our site spotless!

We will be using two 24’ trucks to transport our camp to and from the playa, and all of our refuse will leave in that same manner for proper disposal off playa.

Many of us have previously taken part in playa sweeps and it is our intention to encourage that again this year to assist the global cleanup efforts on the playa. We are a conscientious group and have every intention of leaving no trace in our camp or the immediate vicinity. If you require further information on plan specifics or see an item unaddressed that you would like more clarity on, please feel free to contact our camp coordinator, Doggy Dave, at bigbludog@gmail.com