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.
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.
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.
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!
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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!! 💩 💩 💩
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
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 RU-vid 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.
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. 😳
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!
@@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
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.
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?
@@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....
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.
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!
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...
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
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.
As a Nebula subscriber, it's 100% worth the price. All the original content on there from some of RU-vid'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'
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.
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....
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.
@@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 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 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?
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.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Went to a dozen parks last year on the way to the Grand canyon, including Arches, fyi by the time we got there we were a little bored of canyons. It was October though, and most were nearly empty. I recommend going then.
Hi I work for the national park service. it is hard to deal with all the poop. but people often forget we also have to deal with all the bear poop. since bears dont poop in the woods.