As a backpacker, I have been to places that require you to use bags to take your own waste out... I have never seen anything more disheartening than my friends trying to figure out what backpack pocket to put that bag in 💀.
Only poop in those bags. Never pee. I made that mistake once. The bag stayed sealed, but I didn't know if I should put it on the bottom or the top. Bottom and if it leaks only the bottom gets wet, but the weight of all my gear could pop the seal. On top everything gets wet if it leaks, but there's no weight to cause the issue. I went with top and it was a good choice. If all the bag has is pooh it's going to be safe.
There’s a really simple solution to this that nobody will go for: a three pit compost toilet. In the old days out in middle of nowhere Appalachia, we had a system where you move the outhouse between three pits, and you cover the pit with sawdust or dried leaf material to balance the carbon and nitrogen in the resulting mixture. One pit is ‘shits’ and that’s the one you use for the year. Then, the next year, the outhouse goes over a new pit, you leave that one for the next year as ‘sits’. Then, the one that sat for two seasons ‘splits’ the dirt that now has had its pathogens broken down into dirt to distribute across non-edible plants as fertilizer. Then, the outhouse goes over that hole, and cycle continues. If we came up with a consumer friendly way to automatically sawdust the hole after every use, it would be the most ecologically responsible way to solve the problem.
Have a chamber above the actual toilet, with a hatch, and a rope connected to the hatch. Use the hatch as a valve, and have the consumer pull the hatch on their way out. Or, have it tied to opening the door or smth. Automatic, so on, so on
I thought of using the poop as compost or fertilizer too. I never heard of the three pit compost strategy. Wonder why they don't compost? Legal issues? Governmental indifference?
@@aviaviavian the door would mean that it would have to release every time someone opens a door. Unfortunately, it is the lifestyle of the US to not care about anyone else when you are in your little bubble.
Then this was just the trailer (pun somewhat intended). Grady at Practical Engineering has an entire series on wastewater management with scale models and synthetic poop.
I worked near Olympic National Park for over 25 years as a wastewater treatment plant professional. A number of my colleagues were hired as substitute treatment plant professionals for the Park Service. Dealing with human waste was a never ending problem for the Park Service.
Thank you for your civil service. Much of my research involves human waste on public lands, and has previously been focused in ROMO. It's a major issue people this is easy to solve. Thank you for all the work you did.
This brings back memories of my four years as a backcountry park ranger at the Grand Canyon. We used composting toilets in the backcountry that needed to be emptied out periodically. It was fun seeing the disappointment on visitors' faces when they would ask me, "is that helicopter searching for a lost hiker?" and I would answer with, "no, it's flying poop out of the canyon." 😆 Our compost crew, the folks who hiked all over the inner canyon and maintained the composting toilets, were often shorthanded, so we rangers would assist them in their duties while on hiking patrols. It's a strangely satisfying feeling one gets from using a rake to knock over and smooth out a three-foot tall cone of poop in a composting toilet. Almost cathartic... 💩
Went camping in Wyoming one winter and saw one such cone of poop in the outhouse by the cabin, talking to the park ranger who stopped by revealed that the temperature didn't get warm enough for all of the cone to unfreeze, so every year or other year they had to climb down and chip the base down. Wild part of a job!
Child #1 - My dad's an attorney! He's cooler than your dad! Child #2 - Well, my dad flies poop out of national parks in a helicopter Child #1 - Um ok, you got me there
Child #2: If my dad wanted to, he could ruin _sooo_ many people's day at the press of a button. Child #1: O-ok, you're starting to scare me. You won, stop talking like that. Child #2: Oceans of feces just pouring down on the unsuspecting...no chance to run...no chance to hide. A veritable maelstrom of corn and cliff bars raining down like hellfire on them all...
Out of sight out of mind mentality is losing steam as population grows. It’s getting harder and harder to push our problems aside. Gonna have to come up with real solutions or we’ll be shit out of luck.
@@seadragon1456 Not sure as im not a backpacker but my guess is: Being on the trail for more than 2 hours, which I assume you would be because how much walking can you really do in between bathroom stops, leaving the park, going to the gas station, and comign back? That sounds very unpleasant and defeating the purpose of, yknow, getting into nature.
:45 Anyone else think that $12,000 for toilet paper for the summer season at a HUMONGUOUS national park isn't all that much toilet paper? When I heard $12,000 I thought the narrator was going to say - per week. But for a whole summer? For a park that had over 4 million visitors per year? I'm not impressed. Thats not a lot of TP.
@@miguelzavaleta1911 Yep. Backcountry toilets tend to be just a box with a hole, situated above a pit - often covered to keep the rain out and make for a more comfortable sit. It can never be guaranteed when the next person will visit the site - or whether a squirrel will decide to use the TP as bedding. Besides, it's not really feasible to keep the TP dry, without building a whole outhouse. As such, backpackers are expected to bring their own roll. Indeed, in some extremely remote areas, visitors are expected to dig their own "cat holes" for their use - usually a prescribed distance from any trail or body of water.
Grand Canyon NP had a waterless urinal in its bathrooms at the visitor’s center. None of the water from the Colorado River was available for park use. There were I think 4 springs that feed into the canyon that they utilize for water use in the park. To help reduce usage naturally. The urinals didn’t have flush capabilities. I believe they just required a good bucket of rinse a day. I’m guessing 1-5 gallons each. They have the modern appearance of a typical urinal but don’t stink or overflow. Almost zero moving parts. So likely inexpensive.
that's literally the only kind of urinal yoiu can find around my area here in Europe nowadays. flushing urinals have been dying out really fast for quite a while now.
Waterless urinals, from my understanding, have oil in the trap. It floats on top of the urine to create a barrier between it and the air. More oil has to be occasionally added when needed, but this is somewhat infrequent (not daily... like I believe it can go months before more is needed)
They don't have $20k for fancy toilets that lighten their workload for 5 years, but they do have $10k a year for cheap toilets? That doesn't make sense.
I worked in recreation for the forest service for years. For our wilderness are we had vault toilets we had to have pumped yearly at the trailheads, then pit toilets out in the actual wilderness. And by pit toilet. I mean a hole in the woods that 2 guys dug then put a riser (then actual toilet thing you sit on in an outhouse) over. They had to dig new holes twice a season for the more well used ones.
@@michaelmccarthy4615 Hey you gotta keep those plumbers on their feet, they need to eat too, but it's really best to throw bags in the toilets at places like walmart, not enjoyable peaceful places. LOL.
One tip to reduce the load on national parks, go to state parks and national forests! They are just as beautiful as national parks (many state and national parks are directly adjacent to one another), but are less crowded and less expensive. National forests are ran by the national park service, but are way less popular and have similar benefits to state parks.
I clean outhouses for a living, and every year we clean a bunch of outhouses in national parks in our area. While there are some outhouses that are a project to get to, generally speaking we just drive to the location and unwrap as much hose as we need.
Last spring I backpacked The Needles District in Canyonlands NP which has mandatory wag bags ("airtight" bags you poo into and then carry with you). On day 3 of 4, when I was carrying both 2 days worth of poop bags and 2 days worth of water, I was both grossed out and angry that I couldn't leave the poo behind. That opinion stuck with me until I backpacked the 4 pass loop in the Maroon Bells Wilderness near Aspen, Co a few weeks ago. Walking anywhere near something that seemed even remotely like a campsite was like walking through a field of toilet paper land mines. Idk what the answer is here. I think that being in nature is important for all humans, not just the super outdoorsy ones but the flip flops and strollers, hotel and car touring ones too. Nevermind the beauty or mental health benefits or the critical importance of conservation, but even just the idea that being in the wilderness makes people care more about protecting the environment is reason enough for National Parks to exist. On the other hand, 350 people all taking a picture of Delicate Arch at the same time really ruins the vibe... idk, I guess I'm with the NPS on this one. Timed entry, 6 month waits for backcountry reservations, dedicated backcountry campsites, and wag bags are the way of the future... that really sucks, but I do think it's the least bad option.
In Australia we have pit toilets that dump into a tank full of a certain bacteria. The bacteria break down the waste, turning it into dry fertiliser. There's typically no smell at all, and they last years before being replaced, because of how it's broken down. Digging pits seems dumb by comparison.
Um, "we have pit toilets .... pits seem dumb?" I'd guess there are more visitors in the US and bacteria can become overwhelmed. Perhaps we'd need aeration? Hopefully, a variety of solutions are being tested because there are a lot of parks that have been chosen for their unique biomes -- and problems with waste management. I think this video doesn't emphasize the point is that there is no universal solution because each park is different.
@@icollectstories5702 yeah pit toilets with containers full of bacteria, as opposed to just a pit. It's all the benefits of the containers mentioned here - able to go anywhere, no interaction with the surrounding ground - but without the need to take it to a processing plant.
No need to add poop eating bacteria to a toilet. They already live in your gut. They come with the poop. Pit additives are not proven to be anything more than marketing.
Most backcountry locations don't have designated toilets. Most of the time you just walk away from camp, dig a shallow "cat" hole, poop in the hole, and bury it. Be sure to pack out your toilet paper. Yellowstone is the only place I've been that has pit toilets in the backcountry. They're pretty nice on a comparison basis, though they're not at all private. It's just a pedestal with a toilet seat out in the trees over a hole. When the pit gets kinda full a ranger digs another hole close by, putting the dirt from the new hole in the old hole, and then sets the pedestal on the new hole. It's my favorite system. Of course when I do the cat hole thing I try to hike 10 or 15 minutes away from camp so the campsites aren't just ringed with pooh landmines. One time I dug and found a tampon applicator. Seriously lady?! The vault toilets in Zion are nasty! The last time I looked in the one at Angels Landing there was a hoodie sitting there that somebody had used as TP because there wasn't any actual TP. This was just a few weeks after the vaults had bern helicoptered out. It got gross way fast. The backcountry vault toilets in Yosemite are much better. The best system I've seen is on West Coast Trail in Canada, but they're right on the ocean so access is easier. I'm really surprised that the waste from Zion is transported to Wellington, UT. That's a long long drive. Taking it to St. George or even to Las Vegas would be way closer. The pooh bags aren't terrible. Just know they're for solid waste only. Deposit liquid waste directly on the ground but away from camping areas because without regular rain it can really stink. I've used pooh bags in Grand Teton National Park, Zion National Park, the San Juan Mountains, and while camping on the Colorado River. Just use one. You'll survive.
A lot of those isolated toilets get gross because well meaning people dump RV tank treatments in them, which kills the natural bacteria that would break the poop down, resulting in a bloom of the RV perfume bacteria, which do nothing to break the poop down, but do make it reek like an old lady who took a bath in 5 bottles of cheap walmart perfume.
@@TheNoodlyAppendage I agree that that would be a bad situation if somebody dumped their RV black water in a composting toilet, but nobody is getting an RV to the top of Walter's Wiggles in Zion NP in million years.
WAG bags are required for all of Canyonlands in the backcountry. And it is becoming more common elsewhere. And if enough people don't use them where required, the NP Service does have one other solution to the problem: close an area to overnight use (which is also becoming more common).
spending billions on defense is the reason why the US was able to print money during covid without becoming Zimbabwe, why do you think China continues to increase their national defense budget each year.
@@GamePois0n Fuck China and all, but the reason China is increasing their defense budget every year is because the US keeps threatening to start a war with them. Also, I call bs on the US would have ended up like Zimbabwe for printing money and not having a huge defense budget. Plenty of countries did similar things and they ain't remotely like Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe ended up like it did due to corruption of government officials stealing from the budget, land reform that was mismanaged, economic sanctions, and the military conflict in Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Simple solution: More bears. Leads to less people in the woods. Apparently, there are less than 1000 Grizzly bears in Yellowstone. Never been, but I've been hiking in a smaller area with around 3000 bears, didn't see a single one. Way too few. And yes, I'm aware, someone who knows what he's doing won't have trouble with bears. Tell that to a family from the city planning a nice, relaxing vacation
4:54 YES I CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I can remove all the knowledge you gave me by going and banging my head on wall extremely hard which will give me a short term memory loss and I will never remember that I even watched your video.
As I'm right now on vacation in the USA, visiting fron the Netherlands. Today we visited Canyonlands and Arches near Moab, Utah. These 2 parks were the worst we visited yet. Toilets were clean, but were massively stinking. We also visted Yosemite, Death Valley, Zion and Bryce and those were very good and clean toilets. We will visit a couple more parks and I will hope they are as good as in Yosemite
@@edwinhuang9244 A lot cheaper than the conveyor type.. (It is normally a two vault structure....) (The main issue might be that the users will probably need directions on how to use the toilets - sand or ash needs to be added after each use) That type (two vault urine diverting dry toilets) have been installed in huge numbers in places to deal with Cholera outbreak... (eThekwini municipality in South Africa have installed ~75000 of them. They are not always popular - many people insist on flush toilets)
@@edwinhuang9244 I don't have prices for the conveyor type, but UDDTs cost around EUR100 - EUR600 to install in 2013... See "Technology Review of Urine-diverting dry toilets (UDDTs) Overview of design, operation, management and costs", from page 39 (links mostly gets blocked in RUclips comments) (and most are for the squatting type (The ~EUR600 was the ones in South Africa, which was not of the squatting type)) (There is a CBC article that cites a cost fo $20k - $50k for the conveyor type toilets... Canadian labour costs might be a factor compared to the places where the vault-type UDDTs were installed title "How do B.C.'s eco-friendly outhouses work? With foot pumps and feces-eating worms")
@@GertvandenBerg The problem with any toilet that requires directions is that people won't read the directions, scream "Ah do whut Ah Want!", and just crap wherever/however they want.
They just need to put a phone charger in the toilets near the park entrance and install five times as many. Almost no one will make it into the actual park.
At the Phantom Ranch (at the bottom of the Grand Canyon) they actually dry restroom waste and then put it into garbage bags before flying it out. A friend of mine makes good money keeping the system going. I did a video summarizing the process called "Biology Is Messy" and there's a link to my friend's channel at the end where he has all sorts of videos showing how it's done!
What makes poop so gross is that it is neither pure solid or pure liquid!! In either of those situations it will be less messy. Instead it is a rancid mush that defiles everything it touches. Such is the nature of smelly feces!! 💩 💩 💩
Rotating wheel bioreactors can completely compost poop within 2 weeks, and can be powered with a single small solar panel. Minor maintenance costs, and can be integrated into any vault toilet
That could work for some places, but for others it depends on how consistent that solar energy is. Olympic National Park is in the middle of a temperate rainforest and solar is mostly supplemental in the region in general.
@@BonaparteBardithion Absolutely, I grew up on the coast under the fog and trees, but the power requirements for these really are minimal since they only turn about once per minute and can be intermittent. They might get fouled up with trash though.
Like most conservation issues, it's a numbers game. That works great in the actual backcountry, but a lot of official park sites are booked solid these days - especially since COVID. When all the hotels closed, people went to the parks, and are continuing to use their overpriced camping gear. Now, more than ever, those sites are as busy as a Motel 6. Sadly, the old go-to options are no longer sustainable. That much waste just doesn't break down fast enough, and cat-holes would leaves sites looking like a dog-yard.
After my overnight through hike of The Narrows in Zion a few years ago (Labor Day weekend), I stopped at the backcountry desk to pickup my next permit and the Ranger and I got talking about poop. She was disgusted to report that she had picked up 9 pounds of human feces from around the banks of the lower part of the river narrows. 😳
@@carlossanchez7583 That's called a sceptic tank. And yes, while gravity plays a role, as it does with all objects of mass, principally it works because of volume. Im gonna hold out for this new damn fangled technology that makes pee travel upwards, and if Sam doesnt clarify, there are plenty of plastic bottles floating around.
@@sunalwaysshinesonTVs Septic tank* It's quite likely that the technology involves the use of methods you'd probably find in a wastewater treatment plant, although it's best to look up the original documentation for that!
@@scythal skeptic tank* Those plants are septic (thank you) tanks but with a skimmer, so your answer I find unacceptable. I demand a technology that makes pee flow up to the surface using gravity! That's what Sam promised, or am I just imagining things....
I have a few quite good books "How to shit in the woods", it's sequel "Up Shit Creek: A Collection of Horrifyingly True Wilderness Toilet Misadventures" and "Bear attacks their causes and avoidance". All good reads but the latter one is basically it depends what mood the bear is in and these methods may or may not work - good luck!
Nothing like a complicated solution to a simple problem. Vault toilets are very common as they do not require water or electricity, but there has to be a sturdy road to it to accommodate a pump truck, would also allow easier access for servicing the toilet. The parks service could save money by buying their own pump trucks but when has the government ever cared how much money they waste.
I am fortunately one of the people who doesn't go number 2 every day. So most of the time while I'm hiking or camping I can usually wait till I'm back to running water.
What’s with people that crap in the middle of hiking activities? I grew up in the mountains, running around and climbing stuff. Never had to drop a deuce in the forest. Maybe it’s the garbage people eat?
@@organizedchaos4559 Parks continue to exist because visitors exist. All of that land could be used for resource extraction; if no one cared about the parks, they would get rezoned / deleted
Why not just have pit toilets, but the shelter on top can move on wheels. Every season, dig a new hole, use the dirt from that to backfill the last one and then just shimmy the toilet shelter over the new hole. Problem solved.
In woodland forests, a single turd takes up to six months to completely break down when buried under 6 inches of soil. That consumes about a 1 square foot area. Multiply that by the number of tourists. Just dig a 6 inch diameter hole about 6 inches deep. Set the soil off to the side of the hole. Place your heels in front of and off to the side of the hole, squat and relieve yourself. Then push the soil back over the poop and tamp it down with the shovel. Push a stick into the ground to mark the spot. In the army we called these catholes. Its ecofriendly and depending on the environment will take anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months to completely break down. You can even throw some local seeds or grass/clover on the ground to help.
I'm a retired U.S. Forest Service employee and spent nearly all of my career in recreation management and law enforcement. Pit toilets were not allowed anywhere and we always had vaults. Vaults in most toilet designs are not portable, they are large concrete structures built on site to be permanent installations. Some backcountry toilets use portable tanks, some even being 55 gallon drums. These have to be hauled out, mostly by helicopter. Helos are expensive, with per hour charges being in the thousands of dollars. This dependent on how much weight the helo can lift. I can't say this for sure on all public land, but I don't think pit toilets exist anymore. Bacteria can enter ground water and play hell with water quality.
I grew up in the Rocky Mountains. I drank from the streams and never thought anything about it. Our business was done in a hole and buried. We didn’t know the issues it would cause. Now, in most National Parks, if you drink from a stream, even filtered through moss, you’re going to get sick. I just don’t go to them anymore. I’ve always wanted to see Zion, but too many people and too many issues.
I don't really remember much about toilets on coastal trips except for one in California where it had no tank, it emptied right out onto the beach where the tide could wash it all out into the ocean...
As a Nebula subscriber, it's 100% worth the price. All the original content on there from some of RUclips's best educational creators, with extended cuts of videos that you see on YT, with no ads, it's great! Plus the access to Curiosity Stream makes the price of an annual plan that much better.
Oh I bet it is, but see. I just like going to youtube, its 1 place I need to worry about, I just load it up & the recommendations are pretty good, always stuff to watch. Its not about the money, it's a great price, I just don't care enough to use another platform. I'll donate Monero to creators & projects I like cause I use AdBlock, but my donation policy for everything is only if they accept Monero a secure & private crypto unlike bitcoin which is trash.
@@RedmarKerkhof haha this is just free advertising for Nebula, I wish I'd get paid to write this. I probably should tone down the positivity though, make seem less 'advert' and more 'recommendation/opinion'
i have this problem with HAI videos where ill go to answer a text or something quick and come back to the video only like 15-20 seconds later, but i'm already completely lost. like first we were talking about air lifting poop then fish are drinking starbucks? i have to rewind
In high-use areas the problem of poo is no joke. I have been up in (what should be) pristine mountain lakes to be disgusted and disappointed to find dozens of piles of human excrement that people don’t even bother to bury. This is in an ecosystem that spends a good chunk of the year covered with snow, so it takes decades to recover from any disruption.
1:28 I'm pretty sure that's the rest area on I-70 just west of the CO/UT border. If so, I just recognized a 2 second clip of a place I've been to once in my life. (and it's NOT a National Park)
Pretty sure you're right. Only, I've been there like three times. There's a really nice view there so I tend to hang around for a few minutes. I slept in my car there once too.
Which is why we have the small portable and flushing Thetford Porta Potti along with a small privacy “tent” that just pops itself up in a couple seconds. It’s an absolute lifesaver. For backcountry trips we have a lightweight origami style toilet/bucket that collapses flat and uses a leak proof bag, degradable liner, and a gel inside that keeps it all squared away.
Call me old fashioned, but when I'm doing deep woods camping, I just take a trowel with me and bury my waste. Literally takes 10 seconds to make a smol hole. You want to bury it to prevent the odor from attracting bears and whatnot.
First, most national parks visitors don’t go into the backcountry and thus can’t do that. Second, backcountry use has increased dramatically regardless, so any “used” camping site most likely has hundreds of cat holes around it. Third, there are many backcountry environments where cat holes will never decompose.
It really pisses me off how common this problem is: It costs $10,000 every 1 or 2 years for waste removal from a toilet, and $20,000 to install a toilet that won't have that problem. Instead of budgeting $20,000 ONCE to take care of the problem, that's too expensive, so we keep spending $10,000 over and over instead. JUST FUCKING BORROW/SAVE ONCE TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM.
I’m not sure if this would work in the states, but here in Australia, our national parks have toilet blocks built 5-6ft with above ground septic tanks underneath. They flush by using a hand pump with stored rain water. I would assume there’s some sort of chemical(s) in the tank to help breakdown. As far as I know they are pretty much maintenance free, that is, I’ve never seen any needing to get emptied, and I have done a fair bit of camping in our national parks. If I’m incorrect please let me know....
For the Zion one, isn’t it much easier and more cost effective to bring the waste to St. George? Also, Zion isn’t all that remote or hard to get through. It’s got quite a bit of accessibility for a national park. There is basically a main road through it and they have a lodge. Just odd that they have to airlift waste out.
@@BitmappedWV blue ridge parkway is a road that goes thru the park and was the only one labeled as a trail/road instead of the park. Shenandoah always gets slept on
@@POTBELLY15 Blue Ridge Parkway does not go through Shenandoah National Park. The Blue Ridge Parkway's northern end is at Rockfish Gap, which is the southern end of Shenandoah National Park. The road through Shenandoah National Park is Skyline Drive.
I was just thinking, “what about pee?” Then I got to the middle of the video, and Sam, you do not disappoint. Also, why is there a poop emoji, but not a pee emoji?
I portage camped in Algonquin park Canada, you have to canoe to each site, on the 4th day we were 13km in and the park service designated toilet was a box with no walls just a toilet seat and a sign that said “the thunder box”, there was no cover either so you could imagine how disgusting the toilet was and it was almost full, but when you gotta go you gotta go man. There was also a water fall a couple hundred meters away and right I front of the thunder box there was a wooded field that animals would run through so it wasn’t that bad.
In Smokies, I kept thinking the amazingly worn side trails would lead to something interesting only to dead end at nothing. I then realized during the high season, this was everyone’s paths to poop. It was nasty.
When visiting the US, I enjoy the national parks. The toilets however confused me a lot. 1. For a man to urinate, he has to enter the cubical. Why not urinals on the outside 🤔 all you need is partitions. Very common in Europe. 2. Composting toilets are very efficient when combined with solar and wind turbines. Yes those cost a bit in beginning, however would save a lot in the long-term
Urinals with partitions are also common in the US. Even urinals without partitions. I've never seen one inside a separate cubicle, unless it was a one-person bathroom.
@@jantschierschky3461 you're underestimating how miserable Karen's can be. They'll complain about a urinal in a unisex bathroom, because they don't like the idea of someone else being able to urinate easier than them.
In Indian train they have implemented something called as Bio-toilet which contains some bacteria that would convert the solid waste into water and they will release those water into land. Easy 😅
@@jpaugh64There is this crazy idea where you dig a hole, poop in that, then bury it. It seems to work like gangbusters, but I guess people would rather spend lots of money to build out houses that never are sanitized and become vectors for fecal borne disease, or poop in a plastic bag and carry it around for days, likely contaminating everything in your pack and yourself with fecal bacteria. 👍
I don't get what's wrong with the pit toilet. Like, it's human faeces. It'll decompose pretty quickly. And it's really no different from a dozen animals taking a dump all over the park.
My guess here is that the majority of people eat highly processed foods that contain preservatives that slow down the decomposition process of our poop. My guess only is that we poop so much and our poop doesn't have enough time to decompose.
yeah feels like a contradiction. like how science says humans are animals, but then, unless we are humans messing up the animal kingdom. either we are animals and a part of nature or we are separate and have a responsibility to take care of nature. you can't have both
I think its a volume issue, 1 pile of bear scat decomposes in a week or two depending on climate. But an average of say 10people per hour using a facility will add up alot faster than nature can decompose so the pit fills faster than is empties. A single person hiking in the woods can simply dig a hole and bury it when done and its probably fine. 300 hikers doing the same every day and now its a problem.
When we went backpacking on rez land the deal was that pee can go on the ground but every single other thing comes back out with you. We got fined because someone puked in camp
Been to most the national parks in the west. Hiked 12-16 hour days including big wall climbing. If you have to poop during your hike, you’re eating to much and not moving fast enough.
Today's fact: The first film ever shown in the White House was The Birth of a Nation, a pro-white supremacy silent film that the KKK also used as a recruiting tool.
We don't have them here, and it's not really an issue. What I see is that people from the US concentrates in certain areas of the park and use it as a getaway, when you put thousands of constant visitors in the same areas, the waste becomes an issue. Maybe if you guys would stop creating tourist friendly infrastructure in your parks, then you wouldn't have so many visitors. We keep the parks for nature's sake, not for our sake! And those who understand the dangers of raw nature can decide if they want to go or not.
You're underestimating the arrogance and ignorance of Americans. It won't stop them, and they'll still think they can visit even while being grossly unprepared. Then the NPS has to decide whether to let them die or spend $$$ on SAR.
No. We keep the parks for _our_ sakes, and we all have our own reasons. Making them less visitor friendly just makes it more difficult (politically) to get their budget increased, because fewer people will care about it.
They need to brick them. Most of the volume is liquid and liquid is easy to dispose with evaporation being a potential option. With the resulting waste dehydrated there could be as little as a quarter of the volume and weight to dispose of. It's not economical to remove all the water so it makes sense to remove it at the site.
Incinerator-methane digester toilets might be a viable solution. Use standard water toilets to collect sewage, use appropriately sized methane digesters to produce methane that is then burned with solid waste and water recycled back into the system in arid environments or clarified water reintroduced into the water table in temperate environments. It would be a good solution to pathogen problems and prescription medications being the sewage as well. Problem is it would require a ton of infrastructure, so would only be viable in areas around east access areas. More remote areas may just have to stick with outhouses.
As a backpacker, I have been to places that require you to use bags to take your own waste out... I have never seen anything more disheartening than my friends trying to figure out what backpack pocket to put that bag in 💀.
🤣🤣🤣they doin 2 much
Only poop in those bags. Never pee. I made that mistake once. The bag stayed sealed, but I didn't know if I should put it on the bottom or the top. Bottom and if it leaks only the bottom gets wet, but the weight of all my gear could pop the seal. On top everything gets wet if it leaks, but there's no weight to cause the issue. I went with top and it was a good choice. If all the bag has is pooh it's going to be safe.
I'd bury that shit
Put it in the bear canister to make sure it doesn't get crushed and to keep the bears safe from your toxic waste. 🙂
screw that it ruins the whole experience in my opinion... let people bury it
There’s a really simple solution to this that nobody will go for: a three pit compost toilet. In the old days out in middle of nowhere Appalachia, we had a system where you move the outhouse between three pits, and you cover the pit with sawdust or dried leaf material to balance the carbon and nitrogen in the resulting mixture.
One pit is ‘shits’ and that’s the one you use for the year. Then, the next year, the outhouse goes over a new pit, you leave that one for the next year as ‘sits’. Then, the one that sat for two seasons ‘splits’ the dirt that now has had its pathogens broken down into dirt to distribute across non-edible plants as fertilizer. Then, the outhouse goes over that hole, and cycle continues.
If we came up with a consumer friendly way to automatically sawdust the hole after every use, it would be the most ecologically responsible way to solve the problem.
Have a chamber above the actual toilet, with a hatch, and a rope connected to the hatch. Use the hatch as a valve, and have the consumer pull the hatch on their way out. Or, have it tied to opening the door or smth. Automatic, so on, so on
I thought of using the poop as compost or fertilizer too. I never heard of the three pit compost strategy. Wonder why they don't compost? Legal issues? Governmental indifference?
Instead of using sawdust, why not use or invent a toilet paper balanced for this purpose?
@@aviaviavian the door would mean that it would have to release every time someone opens a door. Unfortunately, it is the lifestyle of the US to not care about anyone else when you are in your little bubble.
I’ve been to numerous parks that had someone similar. It was just one pit, but they had a bucket of sawdust to put in.
Alternate title: The Incredible Logistics of Poop
"The Inside Scoop on the Poop Situation."
do I smell some wendover comin along?
Then this was just the trailer (pun somewhat intended). Grady at Practical Engineering has an entire series on wastewater management with scale models and synthetic poop.
That would be a good 20 minute Wendover video
Poop brownies from the army. Or poop bricks.
"You're smarter now, and there's nothing you can do about it."
Is that a threat?
Yes I'm gonna violently make everyone smarter, and there's nothing you can do about it
Yes
try and forget
No, it's more of a statement that impending doom has arrived.
bold thing to say to someone who has alcohol
I worked near Olympic National Park for over 25 years as a wastewater treatment plant professional. A number of my colleagues were hired as substitute treatment plant professionals for the Park Service. Dealing with human waste was a never ending problem for the Park Service.
Thank you for your civil service. Much of my research involves human waste on public lands, and has previously been focused in ROMO. It's a major issue people this is easy to solve. Thank you for all the work you did.
Does a bear shit in the woods ?
This brings back memories of my four years as a backcountry park ranger at the Grand Canyon. We used composting toilets in the backcountry that needed to be emptied out periodically. It was fun seeing the disappointment on visitors' faces when they would ask me, "is that helicopter searching for a lost hiker?" and I would answer with, "no, it's flying poop out of the canyon." 😆
Our compost crew, the folks who hiked all over the inner canyon and maintained the composting toilets, were often shorthanded, so we rangers would assist them in their duties while on hiking patrols. It's a strangely satisfying feeling one gets from using a rake to knock over and smooth out a three-foot tall cone of poop in a composting toilet. Almost cathartic... 💩
😂
😂😂
Went camping in Wyoming one winter and saw one such cone of poop in the outhouse by the cabin, talking to the park ranger who stopped by revealed that the temperature didn't get warm enough for all of the cone to unfreeze, so every year or other year they had to climb down and chip the base down. Wild part of a job!
♪"I wanna be a kybo ranger, I wanna live a life of danger"♪
Child #1 - My dad's an attorney! He's cooler than your dad!
Child #2 - Well, my dad flies poop out of national parks in a helicopter
Child #1 - Um ok, you got me there
Child #2: If my dad wanted to, he could ruin _sooo_ many people's day at the press of a button.
Child #1: O-ok, you're starting to scare me. You won, stop talking like that.
Child #2: Oceans of feces just pouring down on the unsuspecting...no chance to run...no chance to hide. A veritable maelstrom of corn and cliff bars raining down like hellfire on them all...
Child #1: W-Why are you still goin-
Child #2: It's not about the poop, it's about sending a message.
Ngl, kids would probably think that's the coolest job, at least if there's an overlap in when they find helicopters cool and poop funny
I'm an attorney, and I want the helicopter pooplift job
@@MrDogfish83 Brb, quitting my job. I've finally found my true calling in life!
Like with many human problems, the action itself isn't the issue. It's a matter of millions of people performing that action multiple times a day.
Good point. But we don't think of anyone but ourselves today so...
Out of sight out of mind mentality is losing steam as population grows. It’s getting harder and harder to push our problems aside. Gonna have to come up with real solutions or we’ll be shit out of luck.
What’s so hard about going BEFORE hitting the trail??
@@seadragon1456 Not sure as im not a backpacker but my guess is: Being on the trail for more than 2 hours, which I assume you would be because how much walking can you really do in between bathroom stops, leaving the park, going to the gas station, and comign back? That sounds very unpleasant and defeating the purpose of, yknow, getting into nature.
:45 Anyone else think that $12,000 for toilet paper for the summer season at a HUMONGUOUS national park isn't all that much toilet paper? When I heard $12,000 I thought the narrator was going to say - per week. But for a whole summer? For a park that had over 4 million visitors per year? I'm not impressed. Thats not a lot of TP.
My exact thought. I think it's cuz most of us carry our own rolls
@@the_real_cookiezFirst I've heard of this. I didn't know people did this, but I also never camp, so I never poop anywhere except my hotel.
@@miguelzavaleta1911 Yep. Backcountry toilets tend to be just a box with a hole, situated above a pit - often covered to keep the rain out and make for a more comfortable sit. It can never be guaranteed when the next person will visit the site - or whether a squirrel will decide to use the TP as bedding. Besides, it's not really feasible to keep the TP dry, without building a whole outhouse. As such, backpackers are expected to bring their own roll. Indeed, in some extremely remote areas, visitors are expected to dig their own "cat holes" for their use - usually a prescribed distance from any trail or body of water.
I bought that much in toilet paper at the start of the Pandemic in 2020. 😁
I almost think he has to be wrong about that, $12k a year doesn’t sound remotely feasible for the traffic Yellowstone gets.
Grand Canyon NP had a waterless urinal in its bathrooms at the visitor’s center. None of the water from the Colorado River was available for park use. There were I think 4 springs that feed into the canyon that they utilize for water use in the park. To help reduce usage naturally. The urinals didn’t have flush capabilities. I believe they just required a good bucket of rinse a day. I’m guessing 1-5 gallons each. They have the modern appearance of a typical urinal but don’t stink or overflow. Almost zero moving parts. So likely inexpensive.
They use these at my former high school. At least where I lived they where never flushed so 0 Liters per day
One of the best reasons why multi-gender bathrooms should still have urinals
that's literally the only kind of urinal yoiu can find around my area here in Europe nowadays. flushing urinals have been dying out really fast for quite a while now.
Waterless urinals, from my understanding, have oil in the trap. It floats on top of the urine to create a barrier between it and the air. More oil has to be occasionally added when needed, but this is somewhat infrequent (not daily... like I believe it can go months before more is needed)
Virginia has those in some rest stops. Very smart idea.
The “cliff bar slurry” made laugh so hard I cried. 😂
If you know, you _know._
They don't have $20k for fancy toilets that lighten their workload for 5 years, but they do have $10k a year for cheap toilets? That doesn't make sense.
Quarterly reports, quarterly logic.
something something poor man's boots
We don’t have 1300$ for new textbooks, but we have 10000$ for a bag of bushings?
Welcome to bureaucracy
Welcome to America. We only think short term.
I worked in recreation for the forest service for years. For our wilderness are we had vault toilets we had to have pumped yearly at the trailheads, then pit toilets out in the actual wilderness. And by pit toilet. I mean a hole in the woods that 2 guys dug then put a riser (then actual toilet thing you sit on in an outhouse) over. They had to dig new holes twice a season for the more well used ones.
People throw things in toilets. That really messes the system up.
Thank you. Thank you. Seeing a toilet seat in the backcountry is a most welcome sight.
Your service is appreciated! To someone who is accustomed to the backwoods, even a basic "thunder box" is a welcome bit of comfort in the backcountry.
@@michaelmccarthy4615 Hey you gotta keep those plumbers on their feet, they need to eat too, but it's really best to throw bags in the toilets at places like walmart, not enjoyable peaceful places. LOL.
One tip to reduce the load on national parks, go to state parks and national forests! They are just as beautiful as national parks (many state and national parks are directly adjacent to one another), but are less crowded and less expensive. National forests are ran by the national park service, but are way less popular and have similar benefits to state parks.
Roosevelt national forest near the rockies is more beautiful than most national parks in my opinion
also consider national monuments! a number of them are effectively parks, just under a different name.
I clean outhouses for a living, and every year we clean a bunch of outhouses in national parks in our area. While there are some outhouses that are a project to get to, generally speaking we just drive to the location and unwrap as much hose as we need.
And I thought crawling around in attics was rough, you sir have a rough job
I could never clean peoples sharts. Thats fucked
Last spring I backpacked The Needles District in Canyonlands NP which has mandatory wag bags ("airtight" bags you poo into and then carry with you). On day 3 of 4, when I was carrying both 2 days worth of poop bags and 2 days worth of water, I was both grossed out and angry that I couldn't leave the poo behind. That opinion stuck with me until I backpacked the 4 pass loop in the Maroon Bells Wilderness near Aspen, Co a few weeks ago. Walking anywhere near something that seemed even remotely like a campsite was like walking through a field of toilet paper land mines.
Idk what the answer is here. I think that being in nature is important for all humans, not just the super outdoorsy ones but the flip flops and strollers, hotel and car touring ones too. Nevermind the beauty or mental health benefits or the critical importance of conservation, but even just the idea that being in the wilderness makes people care more about protecting the environment is reason enough for National Parks to exist. On the other hand, 350 people all taking a picture of Delicate Arch at the same time really ruins the vibe... idk, I guess I'm with the NPS on this one. Timed entry, 6 month waits for backcountry reservations, dedicated backcountry campsites, and wag bags are the way of the future... that really sucks, but I do think it's the least bad option.
In Australia we have pit toilets that dump into a tank full of a certain bacteria. The bacteria break down the waste, turning it into dry fertiliser. There's typically no smell at all, and they last years before being replaced, because of how it's broken down. Digging pits seems dumb by comparison.
Um, "we have pit toilets .... pits seem dumb?"
I'd guess there are more visitors in the US and bacteria can become overwhelmed. Perhaps we'd need aeration?
Hopefully, a variety of solutions are being tested because there are a lot of parks that have been chosen for their unique biomes -- and problems with waste management. I think this video doesn't emphasize the point is that there is no universal solution because each park is different.
@@icollectstories5702 yeah pit toilets with containers full of bacteria, as opposed to just a pit. It's all the benefits of the containers mentioned here - able to go anywhere, no interaction with the surrounding ground - but without the need to take it to a processing plant.
I've heard you do that. Isn't it known as "Fosters?"
No need to add poop eating bacteria to a toilet. They already live in your gut. They come with the poop. Pit additives are not proven to be anything more than marketing.
australians don't drink fosters @@ge2623
Looks like a great thing to watch on my lunch break
Well that is your own fault. Your supposed to eat and gossip on your lunch break. Work time is for YT and Reddit. Git with the program. 😂😂😂
Especially with the stock video at 3:58
Most backcountry locations don't have designated toilets. Most of the time you just walk away from camp, dig a shallow "cat" hole, poop in the hole, and bury it. Be sure to pack out your toilet paper. Yellowstone is the only place I've been that has pit toilets in the backcountry. They're pretty nice on a comparison basis, though they're not at all private. It's just a pedestal with a toilet seat out in the trees over a hole. When the pit gets kinda full a ranger digs another hole close by, putting the dirt from the new hole in the old hole, and then sets the pedestal on the new hole. It's my favorite system. Of course when I do the cat hole thing I try to hike 10 or 15 minutes away from camp so the campsites aren't just ringed with pooh landmines. One time I dug and found a tampon applicator. Seriously lady?!
The vault toilets in Zion are nasty! The last time I looked in the one at Angels Landing there was a hoodie sitting there that somebody had used as TP because there wasn't any actual TP. This was just a few weeks after the vaults had bern helicoptered out. It got gross way fast. The backcountry vault toilets in Yosemite are much better. The best system I've seen is on West Coast Trail in Canada, but they're right on the ocean so access is easier.
I'm really surprised that the waste from Zion is transported to Wellington, UT. That's a long long drive. Taking it to St. George or even to Las Vegas would be way closer.
The pooh bags aren't terrible. Just know they're for solid waste only. Deposit liquid waste directly on the ground but away from camping areas because without regular rain it can really stink. I've used pooh bags in Grand Teton National Park, Zion National Park, the San Juan Mountains, and while camping on the Colorado River. Just use one. You'll survive.
Sequoia NP has a couple of backcountry pit toilets, too. And one popular lake there was recently closed to camping due to 💩.
@Anel Zukic 80% of trees west of the Mississippi are conifers, what pine leaves are you using?
When I went it wasn't that bad but yeah the one at Angel's Landing is Pretty Dirty
A lot of those isolated toilets get gross because well meaning people dump RV tank treatments in them, which kills the natural bacteria that would break the poop down, resulting in a bloom of the RV perfume bacteria, which do nothing to break the poop down, but do make it reek like an old lady who took a bath in 5 bottles of cheap walmart perfume.
@@TheNoodlyAppendage I agree that that would be a bad situation if somebody dumped their RV black water in a composting toilet, but nobody is getting an RV to the top of Walter's Wiggles in Zion NP in million years.
I guess you could say they’ve had enough of my crap
WAG bags are required for all of Canyonlands in the backcountry. And it is becoming more common elsewhere. And if enough people don't use them where required, the NP Service does have one other solution to the problem: close an area to overnight use (which is also becoming more common).
It's sad that we can spend billions on defense, but literal holes in the ground in our national parks are too expensive to maintain
National parks can't payback in 20 years with 18% interests on 800B$ packages
@@fightwithdogma ayyyeeee ur on to it !
The parks aren't lobbying or shareholding a slice of that money back into the policy makers' pockets
spending billions on defense is the reason why the US was able to print money during covid without becoming Zimbabwe, why do you think China continues to increase their national defense budget each year.
@@GamePois0n Fuck China and all, but the reason China is increasing their defense budget every year is because the US keeps threatening to start a war with them. Also, I call bs on the US would have ended up like Zimbabwe for printing money and not having a huge defense budget. Plenty of countries did similar things and they ain't remotely like Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe ended up like it did due to corruption of government officials stealing from the budget, land reform that was mismanaged, economic sanctions, and the military conflict in Democratic Republic of the Congo.
That latte joke was so layered i felt a new wrinkle fold on my brain
xD
Simple solution: More bears. Leads to less people in the woods. Apparently, there are less than 1000 Grizzly bears in Yellowstone. Never been, but I've been hiking in a smaller area with around 3000 bears, didn't see a single one. Way too few.
And yes, I'm aware, someone who knows what he's doing won't have trouble with bears. Tell that to a family from the city planning a nice, relaxing vacation
I have the same problem
Lmaooo
@RedDot Bulgaroid 🇧🇬🤖
Clif bar slurry was the grossest thing I've heard all week especially since I was not expecting anything like that to come through my speakers lol.
4:54 YES I CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I can remove all the knowledge you gave me by going and banging my head on wall extremely hard which will give me a short term memory loss and I will never remember that I even watched your video.
Don't do it! You'll end up watching the same video again and again. You'll wind up with a concussion! 😂
@@jpaugh64 sorry man but that's a small sacrifice to prove sam wrong
You can also try shock therapy to destroy your memory.
"You're smarter now and there's nothing you can do about it." you under estimate my ability to forget something 5 seconds after I learned it.
I wonder if that guy from Wendover is now gonna release a video on the world's poop logistics
As I'm right now on vacation in the USA, visiting fron the Netherlands. Today we visited Canyonlands and Arches near Moab, Utah. These 2 parks were the worst we visited yet. Toilets were clean, but were massively stinking. We also visted Yosemite, Death Valley, Zion and Bryce and those were very good and clean toilets. We will visit a couple more parks and I will hope they are as good as in Yosemite
I hope you’re. enjoying your vacation!
*"Leaching excess caffeine into the lake which is like giving fish Starbucks lattes they otherwise couldn't afford."* 🤣🤣🤣
Sam needs to read "Ecological Sanitation"... The two vault urine diverting dry toilets (or the composting ones) might make sense there...
How much money does it cost to install those systems?
@@edwinhuang9244 A lot cheaper than the conveyor type.. (It is normally a two vault structure....) (The main issue might be that the users will probably need directions on how to use the toilets - sand or ash needs to be added after each use)
That type (two vault urine diverting dry toilets) have been installed in huge numbers in places to deal with Cholera outbreak... (eThekwini municipality in South Africa have installed ~75000 of them. They are not always popular - many people insist on flush toilets)
@@GertvandenBerg Source(s)(For the cheaper than the conveyor type)?
@@edwinhuang9244 I don't have prices for the conveyor type, but UDDTs cost around EUR100 - EUR600 to install in 2013... See "Technology Review of
Urine-diverting dry toilets (UDDTs)
Overview of design, operation, management and costs", from page 39 (links mostly gets blocked in RUclips comments) (and most are for the squatting type (The ~EUR600 was the ones in South Africa, which was not of the squatting type))
(There is a CBC article that cites a cost fo $20k - $50k for the conveyor type toilets... Canadian labour costs might be a factor compared to the places where the vault-type UDDTs were installed title "How do B.C.'s eco-friendly outhouses work? With foot pumps and feces-eating worms")
@@GertvandenBerg The problem with any toilet that requires directions is that people won't read the directions, scream "Ah do whut Ah Want!", and just crap wherever/however they want.
They just need to put a phone charger in the toilets near the park entrance and install five times as many. Almost no one will make it into the actual park.
Amen.
At the Phantom Ranch (at the bottom of the Grand Canyon) they actually dry restroom waste and then put it into garbage bags before flying it out. A friend of mine makes good money keeping the system going. I did a video summarizing the process called "Biology Is Messy" and there's a link to my friend's channel at the end where he has all sorts of videos showing how it's done!
I had to run to the fridge and get a beer, just to kill braincells so I ain't getting any smarter.
Yes, that will work - smart idea - whoops.
😂 If that's actually the reason you grabbed a beer, then, yes, you're literally training yourself to be dumber! One beer won't hurt, though!
What makes poop so gross is that it is neither pure solid or pure liquid!! In either of those situations it will be less messy. Instead it is a rancid mush that defiles everything it touches. Such is the nature of smelly feces!! 💩 💩 💩
Why did you have to say "Cliff bar slurry" you're ruining my favorite work snack.
i was literally in the middle of eating one when he said that lmao
@@MithrandilPlays did you finish it? Haha
Holy crap (pun intended) "cliff bar slurry" nearly broke me in half
Rotating wheel bioreactors can completely compost poop within 2 weeks, and can be powered with a single small solar panel. Minor maintenance costs, and can be integrated into any vault toilet
That could work for some places, but for others it depends on how consistent that solar energy is. Olympic National Park is in the middle of a temperate rainforest and solar is mostly supplemental in the region in general.
@@BonaparteBardithion Absolutely, I grew up on the coast under the fog and trees, but the power requirements for these really are minimal since they only turn about once per minute and can be intermittent. They might get fouled up with trash though.
As a former Boy Scout, just dig a hole at least 100 yards from the nearest water source and then bury your bad news.
Like most conservation issues, it's a numbers game. That works great in the actual backcountry, but a lot of official park sites are booked solid these days - especially since COVID. When all the hotels closed, people went to the parks, and are continuing to use their overpriced camping gear. Now, more than ever, those sites are as busy as a Motel 6. Sadly, the old go-to options are no longer sustainable. That much waste just doesn't break down fast enough, and cat-holes would leaves sites looking like a dog-yard.
This is like an ad for never wanting to visit a national park.
i mean they're already full tbh
This is why we need to bring back chamber pots.
That's just peeing on a bush with extra steps.
Those gong farmers will have quite the nightly hike ahead of them!
Pretty shitty situation to be in.
After my overnight through hike of The Narrows in Zion a few years ago (Labor Day weekend), I stopped at the backcountry desk to pickup my next permit and the Ranger and I got talking about poop. She was disgusted to report that she had picked up 9 pounds of human feces from around the banks of the lower part of the river narrows. 😳
Not sure which is more disturbing... having to pick it up ...or....having to weigh it.
Do people not realize they are walking in poo run off? How gross.
Wait, how does gravity function to bring pee up to the surface? Seems like an idea that involves retromingents.
poop is heavier than pee so it sinks to the bottom leaving all the pee at the top
@@carlossanchez7583 surely there's a couple floaters
@@carlossanchez7583 That's called a sceptic tank. And yes, while gravity plays a role, as it does with all objects of mass, principally it works because of volume. Im gonna hold out for this new damn fangled technology that makes pee travel upwards, and if Sam doesnt clarify, there are plenty of plastic bottles floating around.
@@sunalwaysshinesonTVs Septic tank*
It's quite likely that the technology involves the use of methods you'd probably find in a wastewater treatment plant, although it's best to look up the original documentation for that!
@@scythal skeptic tank*
Those plants are septic (thank you) tanks but with a skimmer, so your answer I find unacceptable. I demand a technology that makes pee flow up to the surface using gravity! That's what Sam promised, or am I just imagining things....
I have a few quite good books "How to shit in the woods", it's sequel "Up Shit Creek: A Collection of Horrifyingly True Wilderness Toilet Misadventures" and "Bear attacks their causes and avoidance". All good reads but the latter one is basically it depends what mood the bear is in and these methods may or may not work - good luck!
Nothing like a complicated solution to a simple problem. Vault toilets are very common as they do not require water or electricity, but there has to be a sturdy road to it to accommodate a pump truck, would also allow easier access for servicing the toilet. The parks service could save money by buying their own pump trucks but when has the government ever cared how much money they waste.
This was hilarious, educational, and I gagged the whole time. Well done!
I am fortunately one of the people who doesn't go number 2 every day. So most of the time while I'm hiking or camping I can usually wait till I'm back to running water.
What’s with people that crap in the middle of hiking activities? I grew up in the mountains, running around and climbing stuff. Never had to drop a deuce in the forest.
Maybe it’s the garbage people eat?
national parks need visitors to run but having too many of them is simply problematic
No they don't, National parks get budget no matter how many visitors there are. They should just charge visitors for visiting for management.
@@organizedchaos4559 which they do
@@organizedchaos4559 Parks continue to exist because visitors exist. All of that land could be used for resource extraction; if no one cared about the parks, they would get rezoned / deleted
Normally, I'd suggest hunting as a way to control the population. 😂 Not applicable in this case!
@@jpaugh64 depends on what constitutes 'hunt' in this case.
Having an RV allows you to use a dump station outside the park to help conserve park resources.
Why not just have pit toilets, but the shelter on top can move on wheels. Every season, dig a new hole, use the dirt from that to backfill the last one and then just shimmy the toilet shelter over the new hole. Problem solved.
In woodland forests, a single turd takes up to six months to completely break down when buried under 6 inches of soil. That consumes about a 1 square foot area. Multiply that by the number of tourists. Just dig a 6 inch diameter hole about 6 inches deep. Set the soil off to the side of the hole. Place your heels in front of and off to the side of the hole, squat and relieve yourself. Then push the soil back over the poop and tamp it down with the shovel. Push a stick into the ground to mark the spot. In the army we called these catholes. Its ecofriendly and depending on the environment will take anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months to completely break down. You can even throw some local seeds or grass/clover on the ground to help.
Amateurs talk about poop tactics, but professionals study poop logistics.
:-)
I'm a retired U.S. Forest Service employee and spent nearly all of my career in recreation management and law enforcement. Pit toilets were not allowed anywhere and we always had vaults. Vaults in most toilet designs are not portable, they are large concrete structures built on site to be permanent installations. Some backcountry toilets use portable tanks, some even being 55 gallon drums. These have to be hauled out, mostly by helicopter. Helos are expensive, with per hour charges being in the thousands of dollars. This dependent on how much weight the helo can lift. I can't say this for sure on all public land, but I don't think pit toilets exist anymore. Bacteria can enter ground water and play hell with water quality.
Best video to watch while eating!
I grew up in the Rocky Mountains. I drank from the streams and never thought anything about it. Our business was done in a hole and buried. We didn’t know the issues it would cause. Now, in most National Parks, if you drink from a stream, even filtered through moss, you’re going to get sick.
I just don’t go to them anymore.
I’ve always wanted to see Zion, but too many people and too many issues.
0:10 Sam casually ignoring that we the people of the Pacific Northwest exist
3:58 man I absolutely despise whoever found that stock video lmao. Almost gagged at the idea of someone smearing poop all over their hands
Lol that's just clay.
I believe the term is _outhouse_ and sometimes it's nice to have a breeze on your buns.
And on your meatballs.
I don't really remember much about toilets on coastal trips except for one in California where it had no tank, it emptied right out onto the beach where the tide could wash it all out into the ocean...
Big sur ?
Okay I LOVE watching Wendover and HAI over meals but had to stop when we got to “cliff bar slurry”
Cliff Bar slurry! Killing it
As a Nebula subscriber, it's 100% worth the price. All the original content on there from some of RUclips's best educational creators, with extended cuts of videos that you see on YT, with no ads, it's great! Plus the access to Curiosity Stream makes the price of an annual plan that much better.
How much did you get paid to write this?
Oh I bet it is, but see. I just like going to youtube, its 1 place I need to worry about, I just load it up & the recommendations are pretty good, always stuff to watch.
Its not about the money, it's a great price, I just don't care enough to use another platform.
I'll donate Monero to creators & projects I like cause I use AdBlock, but my donation policy for everything is only if they accept Monero a secure & private crypto unlike bitcoin which is trash.
They are getting more creative with the ads everyday
@@RedmarKerkhof haha this is just free advertising for Nebula, I wish I'd get paid to write this. I probably should tone down the positivity though, make seem less 'advert' and more 'recommendation/opinion'
@@SenorBigDong69 just promoting a product I like, nothing wrong with that haha
i have this problem with HAI videos where ill go to answer a text or something quick and come back to the video only like 15-20 seconds later, but i'm already completely lost. like first we were talking about air lifting poop then fish are drinking starbucks? i have to rewind
If someone in the US figured out how to deep fry an Oreo I feel fairly confident a Scot already did it a decade earlier
In high-use areas the problem of poo is no joke. I have been up in (what should be) pristine mountain lakes to be disgusted and disappointed to find dozens of piles of human excrement that people don’t even bother to bury. This is in an ecosystem that spends a good chunk of the year covered with snow, so it takes decades to recover from any disruption.
"you are smarter now, and there is nothing you can do about it"
dont underestimate my stupid
My poop is a gift…you are supposed to keep it and treasure it
3:10 dats a good 1🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
1:28 I'm pretty sure that's the rest area on I-70 just west of the CO/UT border. If so, I just recognized a 2 second clip of a place I've been to once in my life. (and it's NOT a National Park)
Pretty sure you're right. Only, I've been there like three times. There's a really nice view there so I tend to hang around for a few minutes. I slept in my car there once too.
Which is why we have the small portable and flushing Thetford Porta Potti along with a small privacy “tent” that just pops itself up in a couple seconds. It’s an absolute lifesaver.
For backcountry trips we have a lightweight origami style toilet/bucket that collapses flat and uses a leak proof bag, degradable liner, and a gel inside that keeps it all squared away.
I have never once pooped at a trailhead in all my life of visiting National Parks. Not even in the visitor center.
Call me old fashioned, but when I'm doing deep woods camping, I just take a trowel with me and bury my waste. Literally takes 10 seconds to make a smol hole. You want to bury it to prevent the odor from attracting bears and whatnot.
First, most national parks visitors don’t go into the backcountry and thus can’t do that. Second, backcountry use has increased dramatically regardless, so any “used” camping site most likely has hundreds of cat holes around it. Third, there are many backcountry environments where cat holes will never decompose.
City people come to our beaches and do that in the sand. Absolutely ruins the place. You can't even let your kids build sandcastles anymore
It really pisses me off how common this problem is: It costs $10,000 every 1 or 2 years for waste removal from a toilet, and $20,000 to install a toilet that won't have that problem. Instead of budgeting $20,000 ONCE to take care of the problem, that's too expensive, so we keep spending $10,000 over and over instead. JUST FUCKING BORROW/SAVE ONCE TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM.
The real solution is to just make people shit less.
I’m not sure if this would work in the states, but here in Australia, our national parks have toilet blocks built 5-6ft with above ground septic tanks underneath. They flush by using a hand pump with stored rain water. I would assume there’s some sort of chemical(s) in the tank to help breakdown.
As far as I know they are pretty much maintenance free, that is, I’ve never seen any needing to get emptied, and I have done a fair bit of camping in our national parks.
If I’m incorrect please let me know....
I loved the resignation in the expression of the guy who's just been told that he's smarter now.
Sheer condolences to person who searched and looked for videos :)
For the Zion one, isn’t it much easier and more cost effective to bring the waste to St. George? Also, Zion isn’t all that remote or hard to get through. It’s got quite a bit of accessibility for a national park. There is basically a main road through it and they have a lodge. Just odd that they have to airlift waste out.
Blue Ridge Parkway is NOT the national park, it’s Shenandoah National Park
National Parks aren’t the only NPS units that have this problem.
@@BitmappedWV blue ridge parkway is a road that goes thru the park and was the only one labeled as a trail/road instead of the park. Shenandoah always gets slept on
@@POTBELLY15 Blue Ridge Parkway does not go through Shenandoah National Park. The Blue Ridge Parkway's northern end is at Rockfish Gap, which is the southern end of Shenandoah National Park. The road through Shenandoah National Park is Skyline Drive.
I don’t hike areas through hikers go. Tourist ruin places tbh. I mean I visit many places but I’m usually alone and don’t stay long.
I was just thinking, “what about pee?” Then I got to the middle of the video, and Sam, you do not disappoint. Also, why is there a poop emoji, but not a pee emoji?
We need the peemoji
Emojis came from Japan. Poop emoji means "good luck" (similar pronounciation, google it). Pee is just pee.
golden showers? R Kelly?
I portage camped in Algonquin park Canada, you have to canoe to each site, on the 4th day we were 13km in and the park service designated toilet was a box with no walls just a toilet seat and a sign that said “the thunder box”, there was no cover either so you could imagine how disgusting the toilet was and it was almost full, but when you gotta go you gotta go man.
There was also a water fall a couple hundred meters away and right I front of the thunder box there was a wooded field that animals would run through so it wasn’t that bad.
Tom Scott next year: The insane new idea to deal with backpackers poop
In Smokies, I kept thinking the amazingly worn side trails would lead to something interesting only to dead end at nothing. I then realized during the high season, this was everyone’s paths to poop. It was nasty.
When visiting the US, I enjoy the national parks. The toilets however confused me a lot. 1. For a man to urinate, he has to enter the cubical. Why not urinals on the outside 🤔 all you need is partitions. Very common in Europe. 2. Composting toilets are very efficient when combined with solar and wind turbines. Yes those cost a bit in beginning, however would save a lot in the long-term
Urinals with partitions are also common in the US. Even urinals without partitions. I've never seen one inside a separate cubicle, unless it was a one-person bathroom.
@@jpaugh64 i am talking about in a national park
Because Karen's will complain about it being obscene and sexual.
@@crinkly.love-stick hence I stated partitions, or an enclosure
@@jantschierschky3461 you're underestimating how miserable Karen's can be. They'll complain about a urinal in a unisex bathroom, because they don't like the idea of someone else being able to urinate easier than them.
Yeah that grizzly bear didn't seem too fragile when he had his jaws locked around my skull...
In Indian train they have implemented something called as Bio-toilet which contains some bacteria that would convert the solid waste into water and they will release those water into land. Easy 😅
That's a good idea! Even if the resulting water was too contaminated to release, it would be easier to transport, I'd bet.
@@jpaugh64There is this crazy idea where you dig a hole, poop in that, then bury it. It seems to work like gangbusters, but I guess people would rather spend lots of money to build out houses that never are sanitized and become vectors for fecal borne disease, or poop in a plastic bag and carry it around for days, likely contaminating everything in your pack and yourself with fecal bacteria. 👍
I can imagine the immense satisfaction the graphics design guy felt when he got to write "poop logistics" in a thumbnail 😹
I don't get what's wrong with the pit toilet. Like, it's human faeces. It'll decompose pretty quickly. And it's really no different from a dozen animals taking a dump all over the park.
I know right? It's basically pooping directly into a septic tank
My guess here is that the majority of people eat highly processed foods that contain preservatives that slow down the decomposition process of our poop. My guess only is that we poop so much and our poop doesn't have enough time to decompose.
yeah feels like a contradiction. like how science says humans are animals, but then, unless we are humans messing up the animal kingdom. either we are animals and a part of nature or we are separate and have a responsibility to take care of nature. you can't have both
I understood the problem as being that people fall or jump in these pits.
I think its a volume issue, 1 pile of bear scat decomposes in a week or two depending on climate. But an average of say 10people per hour using a facility will add up alot faster than nature can decompose so the pit fills faster than is empties.
A single person hiking in the woods can simply dig a hole and bury it when done and its probably fine. 300 hikers doing the same every day and now its a problem.
The Army had a similar problem. They went to porta-shitters because 5,000 soldiers all crapping every day for a week or two gets messy quick.
Please do a video on the three gorges dam and and the possibility of it’s collapse!
sounds like a topic more suitable for Real Life Lore
Spoiler alert - it doesn't collapse
@@KerriEverlasting *possibility
When we went backpacking on rez land the deal was that pee can go on the ground but every single other thing comes back out with you. We got fined because someone puked in camp
Here's an idea: institute times where the Parks a closed to visitors, so they can better handle the crowds.
Accepting fewer visitors is always an option.
Been to most the national parks in the west. Hiked 12-16 hour days including big wall climbing. If you have to poop during your hike, you’re eating to much and not moving fast enough.
Today's fact: The first film ever shown in the White House was The Birth of a Nation, a pro-white supremacy silent film that the KKK also used as a recruiting tool.
“Please do not throw anything else other than toilet paper in the toilet. It is extremely difficult to remove.”
Please do not throw cigarette butts in the urinal, they are to hard to relight
We don't have them here, and it's not really an issue. What I see is that people from the US concentrates in certain areas of the park and use it as a getaway, when you put thousands of constant visitors in the same areas, the waste becomes an issue. Maybe if you guys would stop creating tourist friendly infrastructure in your parks, then you wouldn't have so many visitors.
We keep the parks for nature's sake, not for our sake! And those who understand the dangers of raw nature can decide if they want to go or not.
You're underestimating the arrogance and ignorance of Americans. It won't stop them, and they'll still think they can visit even while being grossly unprepared. Then the NPS has to decide whether to let them die or spend $$$ on SAR.
No. We keep the parks for _our_ sakes, and we all have our own reasons. Making them less visitor friendly just makes it more difficult (politically) to get their budget increased, because fewer people will care about it.
They need to brick them. Most of the volume is liquid and liquid is easy to dispose with evaporation being a potential option. With the resulting waste dehydrated there could be as little as a quarter of the volume and weight to dispose of. It's not economical to remove all the water so it makes sense to remove it at the site.
Incinerator-methane digester toilets might be a viable solution. Use standard water toilets to collect sewage, use appropriately sized methane digesters to produce methane that is then burned with solid waste and water recycled back into the system in arid environments or clarified water reintroduced into the water table in temperate environments. It would be a good solution to pathogen problems and prescription medications being the sewage as well. Problem is it would require a ton of infrastructure, so would only be viable in areas around east access areas. More remote areas may just have to stick with outhouses.
I've been to a lot of those toilets and uh... they're like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gunna get.