Trail Trash/Food

When is it acceptable to toss food on the ground?

I’ll admit, if I’m eating an apple on a run, I’ll chuck the core into the bushes on the trail, figuring that it’ll be gobbled up quickly by squirrels, ants, and other creatures. Am I a rotten litterbug for doing this?

Is a banana peel OK?

How about something with a pit? Probably not, right? Same goes for orange peels?

Thoughts? Where’s the acceptable/unacceptable line?

(Captcha code thingamajig fixed. )

14 Responses to "Trail Trash/Food"

Jeff Eichelberger says:

March 13, 2013 at 7:53 am

Leave only footprints.

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Anthony Johnson says:

March 13, 2013 at 8:15 am

If you brought it in then take it out.

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Karl says:

March 13, 2013 at 9:08 am

If it degrades, it’s ok. Get it as far from the trail/people as possible. Try to keep it as natural as possible (i.e. apple core is better than a granola bar).

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Nicole says:

March 13, 2013 at 9:37 am

“Gobbled up by the …”, the problem being, in most cases for the items mentioned, these foods aren’t endemic to the habitat, so by chucking these into the bushes, you’re messing with Mother Nature. With an increasing percentage of the population getting out onto the trails, even chucked biodegradables will have an impact.

For me, the line is what’s possible to pack out, which should be nearly everything I packed in.

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Brian says:

March 13, 2013 at 10:03 am

I agree with the idea that if it degrades it is OK, as long as others are not going to trip on it. However, I will have to say, I have left a jelly bean or fruit snack on the trail.

What is not OK is to leave wrappers and the like. My wife is notorious of packing out other people’s trash. Just the other day on our run she picked up a “Chomps” wrapper with several “Chomps” inside.

So comes the second question, is it OK to eat the food that others leave on the trail?

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Myles says:

March 13, 2013 at 10:48 am

Lots of the food we chuck has waxes or chemicals in them that don’t belong in the wild. But heck, I chuck it! I make sure the stickers are off my peels. My karma trade off = at Way Too Cool I picked up a ton of little trash on the trail during the race, but chucked my banana and orange peels deep in the bushes.

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1. Jared says:
  
  March 13, 2013 at 11:30 am
  
  No trash, nothing human made by a human (other than well you know…) should be left. Anything that will eventually melt back into the soil i say is ok to toss into the bushes.
  
  Reply
Dan says:

March 13, 2013 at 11:48 am

Don’t throw it on the trail, there’s already enough trip hazards 🙂

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eric says:

March 13, 2013 at 1:16 pm

FTR, I’d never consider throwing anything on the trail. I generally chuck the apple core far into the bushes.

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Gary says:

March 13, 2013 at 8:51 pm

I agree totally with Jeff and Nicole. Leave nothing but foot prints, and endeavor not to leave a trace of anything else. While the argument for chucking bits of food that will be quickly gobbled by critters is admittedly tempting, it’s usually unnecessary, changes the behavior of those critters, and puts us at the top of one of those slippery slopes that we should avoid.

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Don says:

March 14, 2013 at 12:14 am

For me it isn’t just about whether it’s bio-degradable or not, but whether you can obviously see it. For that recent, banana skins with their bright colour should only be thrown away if carefully hidden, while the easy answer for apple cores is to eat the damn things (the pips taste like almonds) and then you’re only left with the stalk – in my opinion a much better solution as probably the core is the most nutritious part in the same way as peeling potatoes removes the most nutritious part. So far, contrary to my gran’s warnings, I’m not aware that I have an apple tree growing in my stomach.

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Leah says:

March 14, 2013 at 7:30 am

It can take up to 2 months for an apple core to biodegrade. A banana peel or orange skin can take up to two years–much longer in an arid environment. When I worked for Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, I’d sometimes find mummified oranges or otherwise unidentifiable fruit people “left behind” on the trails… who knows how many years ago.

Make of that what you will, but I’m packing mine out.

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Chris says:

March 16, 2013 at 4:42 am

The people that rip the entire top part off of their GUs probably aren’t reading this, are they?

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François says:

May 2, 2013 at 3:41 pm

You’ll get back lighter than you came in anyway (with only the banana peel or apple core, and without the water) so it’s hassle free to take it back really, whatever your belief in whether it’s endemic or not. For instance bees carry pollen on miles to where a plant was not endemic to begin with, so unless you are running on an island…

And yet, I’d rather not be responsible for taking it out too far 😀 (though I got kicked around by Aussie customs for having NZ dirt on my shoes once at Sydney airport… bad me)

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