Packing Out Your Poo-Covered Toilet Paper
Reading Time: 3 minutes Friends, there’s something important we need to discuss and it has to do with your bowel movements in the great outdoors (no, not the blood, that you need to discuss with a medical professional).
If you’re someone who enjoys (or at least partakes in) using dry (or moist) paper products to clean your genitals post-waste expulsion, you should not be leaving this paper behind in the wilderness (no, not even if you’re burying it).
Why? Because fuck having to look at your used toilet paper on the side of the trail (and you, being the very beautiful and educated user of the outdoors that you are, need to set a good example for everyone else).
Sure, under some circumstances toilet paper decomposes, but this is not always the case. Simply burying your toilet paper does not mean it’s never going to be seen again. And let’s be honest, emergencies and/or less-than-ideal bathroom situations happen, and you are not always able to dig a fantastic cat hole (6 in / 152 mm deep and 200 ft / 60m away from water, camp, and trails) to deposit your waste (let alone, your paper) into.
Carrying around used toilet paper in my backpack? That’s disgusting!
No, packing out your used toilet paper is not as disgusting or terrible a chore as you may imagine (unless you’re a crumpler – start folding, you savage). Get yourself two Ziploc bags, one placed inside the other, to store and pack out used toilet paper. It’s not difficult, friends (and it doesn’t smell either).
If you’re anti-Ziploc bags, I am sure you already have a solution to the toilet paper problem (leaves? snow? smooth stones?) and we would all love to hear about your solution in the comments below.
If you’re reading this, then you’re probably already an awesome person who hikes around with unclean toilet paper in their backpack (or maybe you bidet with a carefully placed water bottle squirt).
Do the world a favor and spread the gospel of toilet-paper-packing-out and encourage others to do the same (or be a legend and follow them into the bushes to clean up after them).
With trails like the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail becoming more popular (especially among those less-experienced hikers who are probably going to end up dying), the impacts of increased use are a real risk; you don’t want those first 100 miles of hiking to turn into a poo-filled minefield, do you?
Who’s the audience here?
Anyone that doesn’t give enough of a crap (no pun intended) to bury properly with biodegradable paper is not gonna give enough of a crap about the same topic to start packing it out instead. And anyone that does give enough of a crap to use biodegradable paper and a proper hole simply doesn’t need any of this advice, because that IS a perfectly good way of doing it.
There is no overlap here of someone that just can’t be bothered to dig a cat hole or buy proper paper, but can be bothered to put a system/kit together to pack it out. That person simply does not exist.
The “emergencies” thing makes no sense either. I can’t think of an emergency that I would be able to pick it up to pack it out after, but would NOT be able to pick it up or scrape it into a proper hole after. That emergency simply doesn’t exist either. If I can get the paper into a pack-out-kit after the emergency then I can get it into a hole after the emergency just fine as well.
I’m NOT saying there’s anything wrong with packing out if that’s how you want to go. So the advice on how to do that is great. But your reasons for telling people they SHOULD do that, on the other hand, amount to nothing.
Nobody should be burying any type of toilet paper in the backcountry – biodegradable or otherwise.
Ranger confidential by Andrea Lankford makes excellent toilet paper
Sounds pricey.
I like to bring those black nitrile gloves for pooping in the woods when backpacking. Chances of getting poop on your hand is pretty high after a particularly messy dump from all that Mountain House Chili Mac with Beans you’ve been eating. The leading cause of E. coli poisoning is eating or preparing food with your poop covered fingers. Think about that next time you dig around in a bag of jerky 20 minutes after you sharted on the side of a tree. Wash your hands people! If you don’t have access to soap and water, put a glove on your wiping hand before you wipe. Then retrieve all the poop covered paper in your gloved hand, ball it up in your fist, then pull the glove off by the wrist, turning it inside out with the paper stored neatly inside it. Now that Ziploc bag just looks like a bag of gloves instead of poop smeared paper. Plus, your hands never come into contact with your own feces so you don’t get sick out there!
Oh, god, please everyone, stop putting your hands into bags of snacks – especially other people’s bags. POUR IT OUT INTO YOUR HAND.
Just be un-American and wash your butt-O with soap and water and forget at all any paper products. Wiping is nasty, washing is better.
Water bottle bidet is always a great option!
You people and your false sense of cleanliness. What kind of barbarian still walks around like everything is ok after smearing poop around on their butt until they can’t see it anymore. Use goddamn water people. Heathens.
Toilet paper should be banned from the wilderness.
Don’t like the look & smell of used TP in your trash bag? Forget about dryer sheets or powdered bleach. Just bring a few doggy poop bags. (I like the blue ones.) After each deuce, turn a doggie bag inside-out on your hand like a glove, grab the poopy paper, squeeze out the air, give it twist and one overhand knot. Wallah!
No smell. Tiny volume. No unsightly poop smears. And it’ll be the cleanest item in your trash bag.
Yes, as Mac says elsewhere, “We’ll go to hell for using plastic.” But the trail thanks us.
This is a great idea for shorter trips, but having to use a new bag for every poop could add up quickly. That said, it’s still better than leaving your TP behind!
Don’t like the look & smell of used TP in your trash bag? Forget about dryer sheets or powdered bleach. Just bring a few doggy poop bags. (I like the blue ones.) After each deuce, turn a doggie bag inside-out on your hand like a glove, grab the poopy paper, squeeze out the air, give it twist and one overhand knot. Wallah!
No smell. Tiny volume. No unsightly poop smears. And it’ll be the cleanest item in your trash bag.
Yes, we’ll go to hell for using plastic. But the trail thanks us.
I’ve never thru-hiked, but I swear by the multitude-of-smooth rocks method for shorter backpacking trips. I wouldn’t be surprised if this method fails over the duration of a thru-hike, though.
I hope you’re burying those smooth rocks, yes?
Ok…I was really curious to read this article…to see what other’s do with their doo, and to appreciate @halfwayanywhere:disqus’s always direct approach to the humor in the uncomfortable.
Here’s my hack; pack-out used TP inside a blue ziplock freezer bag, store that bag with the rest of your food wrappers inside an OpSac, and use a dryer sheet to help with the stink! Give some extra love to the Angels that take your trash! I wash out the OpSac each time I dump trash, reuse it until it fails, and I keep replacements in my bounce box.
There are a few other uses for dryer sheets, but a caution (for those who may not already know)…since dryer sheets are a fabric softener, they can have an adverse effect on moisture wicking properties in wools and performance synthetics, and can degrade DWR and Insect Shield treatments. I’m not sure how the “new and improved” biodegradable dryer sheets act/react, but I’d rather be cautious. I learned the dryer sheet trick back in the 80s, they smelled great (kinda like day hikers), but now I know why the fabric inside my sleeping bag foot box got discolored. I used to think it was my funky feet…??
I think we should all just start pooping in Nalgenes and carrying them out with us. Thoughts?
At least you can’t accidentally bust it open!
Check out the CuloClean on Amazon…
I gave it a “shot” 2 weeks ago in the Whites…and yes, there’s nothing like a clean a$$, no monkey butt, and no TP to pack out until you run out of water!
Here’s a tip I found that makes LNT a little less stenchy. Place a 1/2 tsp. or so of powdered bleach in the ziploc bag that you’re using for your used tp and place that bag in another. And yes, be sure to mark the outside of the dookie bags with tape or marker!
Interesting suggestion. I might try this for my future poop bags.
A suggestion to help with the concept is spray painting the outside ziplock bag.
I’ll have to buy a poop emoji stencil.
Preach sister, Hallelujah and such
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Unpleasant, but somebody had to talk about it. I myself thought burying it was enough but am hearing differently from our national park service, too, who is thinking of closing dispersal camping sites due to this exact thing.
All the rangers I’ve spoken to in Yosemite have always said to pack it out.
Damn straight.
(. ﾟーﾟ)