Co-ant Collective
Co-ant Collective
Black Rock City
Matter out of Place
We want to leave nature the way we found it. Protect the playa by understanding what counts as MOOP—and how to prevent it.
If you trash the desert, you'll get murdered. Not really, but socially. Burning Man takes place on public lands and we want to leave it like we found it. Real burners take the trash handling really seriously. It's the cleanest mass event I have ever been to.
Personal Trash
You have to take everything out that you bring in. There are zero trash cans on the playa. You must make a plan for your trash, collect it and take it out at the end. There are no containers on the playa or by the exits. When Burning Man ends, the locals try to offer services to make money. You can pay several places by the road to take your trash, but you have to pay usually per bag. I took my two bags all the way home instead of paying $20-30.
When you roam around on the playa, always have a little zip loc bag with you with a zipper. You don't want trash to fly back out of your trash bag. You can also hook a key chain through it and attach it to yourself or your bike.
Recycables
Everyone has a different approach, but I would recommend to bring most of your drink liquids in cans. They're easier to rotate through a cooler, portion and keep clean. Large containers might get dirt in them, everything gets hot and you won't want to drink the other half of your gallon mystery water. If you do that, you'll accumulate recycables. After one week for one person I had one trash bag full (I did not crush them). There is a recycables camp on the playa that collects them, otherwise plan to take them back out.
Clothing
Do not bring moopy clothing. That means any type of clothing or accessories that have a high likelihood of losing shit - feathers, rhinestones, disco tiles, sequins..... the smaller the worse. Everything has to be picked up again later on and imagine the nightmare of someone having to sift tiny pearls out of the sand. Don't be a sparkle pony - you can sparkle, but it has to stay on you.
Showering
There are three main options - you don't shower and only use wipes, you bring a shower setup or you see what the playa has to offer (the carcass wash will get you clean, but you gotta be comfortable with nudity).
The wipes will just go in your trash collection, but showering takes a bit of planning to be MOOP friendly. If you're in an RV with a tank, do the math beforehand. There are no hookups on the playa and no in and outs. What you got is what you got until you leave.
If you want extra showers or if you're in a tent/camper van/U-Haul, I recommend to plan a simple shower setup. Mine consisted of a pop-up changing tent that you fold flat when you're done so it doesn't fly away, a water container with a large opening, a rechargeable shower pump and a kiddie pool. Why the kiddie pool? You're not allowed to dump the water onto the playa. Catch it in the mini pool and let it evaporate in the sun. I also brought one large rock to put in the pool so it doesn't fly away.
Bring extra water in 5 gallon containers. Make sure your shampoo/gel is outdoor friendly. I showered every day and felt human again.
"MOOP isn't just trash—it's anything that doesn't belong on the playa."
Leaving your campsite
Most burners bring a couple tools to make sure they leave their campsite sparkling clean when departure comes around. You can bring a small shovel and rake to help check your spot. More advanced are metal detectors, but usually makes more sense, if you build something with nails, screws or other metal parts.
The biggest offender last year were lag bolts again! Regular tent stakes won't help you for two second on the playa. You either need to bring rebar with a mallet or lag bolts with a drill. Please MARK your anchors!! You need to keep people safe (put a solar light next to each one, a tennis ball on top or other obvious markers that work in the dark) AND you need to find them all at the end. Unfortunately a ton of them were left behind last year, because they easily disappear in the sand, if not properly marked. Plan time and have a strategy to make sure your campsite is completely clean before you head back to the default world.
MOOP Masters
That leads me to the efforts that Burning Man makes. Every year there are volunteers that stay for about two months after the event is over to clean up. They comb for weeks through every inch of the playa and don't just pick up every tiniest piece of trash, they also catalog what kind of trash and mark its location. It is an enormous effort. Once they are done, they publish a MOOP map every year where you can see whose camp site came back clear and whose was a disaster.
Burning Man doesn't just want to fulfill their own targets, they also need to pass a check by local officials. When BM says they're done with cleanup, the government comes through and checks a bunch of sample sites that have to pass strict standards. This is critical for BM to pass to receive permits again the following year.
The outer perimeter of BM is also called the trash fence. It signals both the end of the event area as well as prevents some trash to float away into the universe.
The type of person that has been going to Burning Man for a long time and built its legacy is very conscious of MOOP. Whenever I saw something fall to the ground, within 30 seconds someone picked it up and put it in their baggy. Please be this kind of person when you're out there and make good plans for your trash management beforehand.
The
Playa
is Calling
Have the time of your life at the burn
and don't moop.