Ladies, Here are a few steps to pissing ethically outdoors.
Ladies, there is a problem with the environment – a feminine problem.
After a recent festival in Northern Spain, I was upset to find the pristine beach and delicate dune system studded with two-ply flecks of white paper – the remnants of a lot of alcohol, and a lot of women needing to pee. When nature calls, you have to answer, even if there are no available facilities, but toilet paper? Please. Maybe I was just a fortunate country girl with a mum who threw me out on the roadside verges whenever nature called too soon, but as I grew up, my habits didn’t change, and I found that it wasn’t hard to relieve the ol’ bladder without paper. It is a frugal art: first, the crouch, which naturally encourages a form of drip-dry. Add to that a pleasant outdoor breeze, then a little jiggle, and there is no need to leave that telltale piece of paper to pollute the environment.
It’s not only outdoor festivals where this happens. Traveling surfers speckle the car parks of Europe in high season, and some hikers leave a trail like Little Red Riding hood along the coast. These Kleenex way marks, are not only an unsightly blight, but also add up to a large environmental impact. Consider that decomposition rates for toilet paper take up to 2 years (depending on your choice of ply and prevailing climate conditions).
That’s not the worst of it. Toilet paper is often produced from virgin trees (never been logged). Indeed, the U.S. has the largest toilet paper market in the world (world leaders!) with 98% of the toilet paper derived from virgin trees! Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and waste expert with the Natural Resource Defense Council calls the felling of virgin trees for toilet paper a bigger environmental disaster than driving a Hummer! According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. could save 470,000 trees, 1.2 million feet of cubic landfill space, and 169 million gallons of water if everyone in the US traded one roll of regular toilet paper for a recycled roll. Regular toilet paper is also soaked with a cocktail of chemicals that slowly decompose into the environment (including chlorines, dioxins, pesticides). When these chemicals are introduced into the ecosystem they remain there, subtly but surely, lasting much longer than the white speckle remains visible.
I speak to you: responsible, nature-loving, surf goddesses. You can avoid this waste! Here are a few steps to pissing ethically outdoors:
1. If paper is really essential for you, then please dispose of it properly. It’s all in the spirit of the adage “Take only photos, leave only footprints.” (See the Centre for Outdoor Ethics Guidelines called at LNT.org).
2) You can bury your paper, which aids decomposition.
3) You pack it out. Whatever you bring into a natural environment, you bring out! That means collecting all waste and disposing of it when you get back to an urban place.
4) My personal favorite: when outside, be free, and don’t use it at all!
5) Choose an environmentally friendly, chlorine-free, recycled toilet paper. Using virgin trees to wipe yourself is just plain stupid.
Happily, it turns out that pissing outside is actually beneficial to an environment (sans paper). Your pee contains good stuff that actively fertilizes the soil like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, so you can practice a little sustainable agriculture when pissing al fresco.
Answering the call of nature while in nature is one of life’s great pleasures. Just remember that it’s not a toilet. Different rules apply, and we shouldn’t ever treat it as such. So embrace the outdoors, go natural, but forget the paper when you’re outside.
