Hey there sports fans, MOOP maniacs and line sweepers extraordinaire! The Hun here, reporting from Gerlach where our brave DPW Playa Restoration team is really starting to feel the burn. Burning sun, that is — over 100 degrees of it, beating down on the barren desert.
Yes, Day Four was a tough one for your Black Rock City home team. The sun rose all red and yellow, and so did the city blocks. Our MOOP line was held up by huge messes in the 2:00 zone — and when they prayed for a cool breeze, they only got biting flies. The insects were so thick that the Restoration team could barely stop to rest — and so they pressed on, making their way through 21 blocks. A very respectable gain by what may be the strongest team this playa has ever known.
Despite the many challenges our team faced, today’s score isn’t so bad. Take a look:
Here’s the report from D.A., DPW Playa Restoration manager:
The Playa Restoration Team fought mid-week fatigue in a 100 degree heatwave without a cloud in the sky, no breeze, and attacking gnats. As they were finishing up Esplanade on a Green note turning around onto A-B-C it was like the Line Sweep drove into a Red brick wall at 2:00 and B-C.
The surprise winners today: The entire stretch of Esplanade from 2:00 to 5:00, a solid wall of Green that put all those Red camps to shame! Great job Esplanade theme camps!
The trouble spots were few, but they were concentrated. Here’s what we found:
2:00 and Esplanade (open playa corner): General MOOP, plus metal construction hardware
2:00 to 2:30 between B and C: A disaster of wood chips on the C side. B side was just MOOPy: Broken glass, cinders, tent stakes, a burn scar, grass sod and bamboo.
2:30 and C: Wood chips, screws, zipties, rebar, cigarette butts
2:45 and B: Just generally MOOPy!
3:00 plaza: An exploded disco ball. Art car accident perhaps?
4:50 between B and C: Pistachio shells, wood chips, PVC shavings, cinders
Today’s overall score: 88% green, 16% yellow and 6% red. That’s a very respectable score, especially considering how concentrated all the MOOPy areas were.
VIDEO: The Great MOOP March!
Ever wonder what the MOOP Line Sweep looks like, and how it really works? This video tribute to our beloved DPW Playa Restoration Line Sweepers might just inspire you to form your own MOOP line next year. Watch and learn!
Tune in next time to see what happens when the line has to leave a “hot spot” behind. ‘Til then, this is The Hun signing off.
Thank you guys so much!
Report comment
So, working those city blocks is a given.
I am curious how the rest of the pentagon dealt with?
Also anxious to see how our camp turns out, the suspense is hard to bear.
Report comment
I am so glad we, Dancetronauts, did our share of MOOP clean up, Esplanade 2:30. I would spend about 30 minutes a day walking around our camp picking up MOOP. I saw other Dancetronauts doing the same through out the day. Left sunday with 4 large trash bags of it. Funny, found a bag of shrooms and a pipe for my efforts.
To the restoration team, my hat goes off to you and send me a PM here sgt pepper and let me send you some nice schwag.
Sgt Pepper
Report comment
How are post holes and line trenches dealt with?
Pretty awesome little video too, BTW
Report comment
I just love how you are documenting this whole process!! I am waiting for our street to show up. We had a group of 5 of the biggest RV/Tour buses behind us. All Virgins, Large Large generators running 24/7, and not interested in being a community with any neighbors. Sad and frustrating. Not sure they understood about MOOP either. Not interested in hearing about any of the BM principles.. we tried. Our camp was very clean when we left. 6:45 and Funeral, left side of steet, looking towards 7:00pm. Thanks for sharing this intense job. We so appeciate all that you are doing… !!
Report comment
You guys rock … thanks for doing what you do!
Report comment
Love this series, every burner should read it to know how much work goes into cleaning up the playa so that we can continue to burn on the Black Rock Desert, which would in turn, I think, cause more of us to be mindful of our actions out there.
Great job, both the clean up crew and those documenting the process!!
Report comment
Love the video! I am so happy that you guys dedicate your time to help clean up every last bit. Love love love!!!!
Report comment
@Jan We were on the opposite side of the RV horde and I know exactly what you mean. Very frustrating. As we were doing our Monday morning moop sweep, we wandered into their abandoned camp and it was not a pretty sight. We got what we could but probably would have been there for another few hours to do a really effective sweep and, what with 7 hours of exodus ahead of us… well…
Report comment
Awesome! thank you all!
Report comment
Happy to here my camp, the Enhightened Beings of Leisure at 4:50 and ESP was green. I was one of the last ones out, gave it a final sweep, glad to not of missed anything! Thank you all for being out there getting the rest! Going to put in a prayer for some cloud cover and sweet breezes, blow them flies away*LOVE*
Report comment
You guys are AWESOME!!! Thank you sooooo much for ALL you do!
Report comment
You peeps are the reason we get to come back every year. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO!! Lots of LOVE xx
Report comment
Awesome job! Thank you all so much!!! Sending thoughts of cool breezes your way!
Report comment
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! So very much appreciated!!!
Report comment
We thank you so much for what you do out there. We are for Station #5 Fire Department and we keep our area as clean as possible. I picked up trash whenever I saw it out on the playa. We want to keep this going on and on :^) See you next year!!
Report comment
you dudes and dudesses are OK. The amount of work you do is tremendous. I promise to try even harder to keep it clean next year.
Report comment
Hugs to each and everyone of you. And the video is wayyyy fun. A reminder of what makes the Burning Man Project amazing.
Report comment
Yay! Thank you Thank you! I am astounded (as a virgin) at the scope of this project- Best Time Ever!
Report comment
Huge appreciation goes out to the playa restoration team. You are inspiration to us all. We were part of that green block on the esplanade (2:45). Thanks for the shout out… Our hard work paid off! Cheers to you all and I hope you get some cool relief soon!
Report comment
Selfless and stupendous. The community and the earth thank you in equal abundant measure!
Report comment
How can a camp find out what kind of moop issues they faced and why they were flagged yellow/red?
Thanks for all of your hard work. Wish I could still be out there helping, especially after seeing our camp flagged red :(
Report comment
So proud of my camp at 6:30 and C, that’s right all GREEN! great job everyone…
Thanks again Playa Restoration Team and DPW!
Report comment
Thank you thank you thank you!!!
Report comment
Much much respect and thankyou so much. Motivation, tenacity and a generous spirit…
Report comment
corey, Will Chase, JV, Airheart, Xain, Carol, Lady Bacchus, OtterBot, ibejonas, champagne, Jonneo, Jennifer CocoCabana Raiser, Paperboy, Skippydogg – You’re welcome!! Very welcome.
G – While the line moves through the city grid, we have a team checking out all the art sites and a couple of scouts that look for MOOPy areas outside the grid. We run the fence line, hit the Man and the Temple, and walk up and down the Promenades. We also MOOP our way through the open playa just outside of Esplanade, 10:00 and 2:00. And we hit Gate and Gate Road. Other than that, it’s whatever we have time for. As for post holes and trenches, we fill them in with shovels, give them a little tamp, and let them be. The wind and rain fills them back in pretty well over the winter.
Sgt Pepper – Congratulations to you and all the Dancetronauts! Great job. As for gifts, that’s really generous of you. At this point in the season, we’re focused on picking up errant swag on the playa, but you could always send a thank-you card to the Burning Man office in Gerlach. Or I can just pass along your well wishes.
Jan DeLano – Fingers crossed for you! I think we won’t get to your camp for another couple of days, but I’m sure you did great.
Jan, Jason – I’m starting to hear that type of story more and more, and it just makes me sad. Keep on representing the Ten Principles in yourself, that’s all we can do I guess.
Iscah – Yay! Congratulations, and thanks for the prayer.
Flamin Awesome – Thank YOU for all you do to keep the rest of us safe!
TahoBob – You’re OK too dude.
anile – Yes! Glad you stopped by. Thank you so much for gettin’ er done.
Indigo – Which is your camp? I will talk to the scribes and Special Forces, and add information to this blog entry about the major red zones. Hopefully that’ll help.
pt – Great job!
Report comment
You guy are totally awesome and rock for doing this! Interesting to see who and where the biggest offenders are! Sending u all cool breezes
Report comment
oh the fun. you guys stilll getting 20.00 hour its under the porta jhons just keep looking. oh the checks are blue.
Report comment
All I can say is “thank you” to those folks who are spending their time cleaning up.
Report comment
Watching this process should be REQUIRED for every burner especially first timers! Our whole camp has their fingers crossed! Please let 9 and D be green! The suspense is killing me. Mad love to the clean up crew.
Report comment
OMG!!! You guys (and gals) are amazing!!!!! Thanks for all you do. I agree that watching your clean-up efforts should be required. We have no worries on our site…as the moop nazi lived there! He trained the several virgins on how things were done. Already counting down till next year… : )
Report comment
beautiful work guys- showing everyone it doesnt end when the rest of us leave BRC!!
im loving keeping up with your valiant efforts (GREAT film!) and biting my toenails with suspense for the results from day 5.
sending love and blessings and gratitude your way, breezes to cool you and send the flies a-flyin.
xxx
Report comment
Thank you so much to all of you for all of your hard work!!!!!!!! routing for you all from the northern reaches of Canada xoxo
Report comment
Hate to tell you this and I am sure you may have heard it before, but you all are S.O.L. After being a park ranger I have learned no matter what we do to educate folks on LEAVE NO TRACE there will always be the careless idiots leaving their trail of stupidity as they continue to front how incredibly awesome they are. It’s just a sad fact of reality that the masses are useless eaters and incessant MOOPer who make beiber and miley rich as well as voting for morons. Every town and city has them, you can identify them by their MOOPy homes, poor teacher have to deal with their MOOPy children and my god the police are just swamped!!! As Bman grows be prepared for the bm’s on the playa. I am still laughing at seeing this dude trying to run away from our headlights while trying to have a BM.
To take care of this MOOP problem I would imagine ticket prices will go up to pay the clean up crews! It is sad that expensive tickets still won’t weed out the MOOPer because MOOPers are rich and poor, and I would bet you that the majority of MOOPs came from those elitists, bar hopping our scene. The TRUESCHOOL kids I was involved with had their sh!t on lock. I was amazed by all the ding dongs that left before the temple burn, who had ACTED so BURNIER THAN THOU leave so much sh!t behind. Humans are animals. Actually calling humans animals is not fair to our furry friends. I find it so funny that we have to educate people to leave no trace, my god; these folks must live like flys feasting on excrement.
SOLUTIONS:
1. Bring your own toilet paper (pertaining to the CONSISTANT mess out front of the sh!ters)
2. Make it a “faux pas” to drink from disposable water bottles in public (for ethical reasons)
3. If it hit the ground, u eat it – violence is a great teacher
At Pow-wows or Mtn Men Rendezvous points are lost in competions if your costume falls apart (learn and prepare). Edward Abbey wrote in desert solitar that the RVs were ruining the Ntl Parks.
MOOPing disrespects the art & artist. It’s a buzz kill. It is so demoralizing when I am in nature and experiencing all of its beauty to then realize there is a water bottle along with a hippie granola bar wrapper littered in my paradise. Burning man could be on the same level as people’s pilgrimage to Mecca – I think it could be my Mecca.
2012 I will be bringing a leaf rake and every morning I will be protecting my crews’ reputation whether they are spiritually worthy or not, it’s my way of saying thanks to the immense effort they all spent to provide me with the most banging sound and enjoyable ride!!! For all you folks disrespecting, remember these theme camps went to way to much effort to shine – fk if you think they have enough energy to pick up your sh!t.
I am sorry I didn’t do more to help – next year I will do better & you better not let me see it hit the ground.
Report comment
AKS, Playa Mom – Shucks, thanks! And thanks for the cool breeze too AKS.
panama – All I can say is HA HA ;)
Miss GO – So glad you approve!! 9 and D, isn’t that where Distrikt was? I’ll have the report tomorrow, but as I recall that was a very large (and very fun) party. Odds aren’t great, keep your fingers crossed… and if it doesn’t turn out to be green, maybe you can think on ways to educate partygoers next year!
CULT – Some of your comments are very helpful but you should try to tone down the rage a bit. That’s not really the point of this discussion, maybe you can voice your anger in another forum and just stick to contributing useful ideas here. I’m glad you’re committed to making things better, and though our reach may be limited it seems like lots of us do agree with you. We all just try to do our best :)
Report comment
Linda – Yeah!! I love MOOP nazis, as long as they’re being somewhat kind in their educational tactics ;)
psymic – The next report will be up tomorrow!! I hope your site did great, thank you so much for the support.
Desert bunny – Thank you!! Sending you a little sunshine from this hot desert.
Report comment
THANK YOU HUN! YOU ARE AWSOME & THANKS FOR LETTING US HAVE FUN!
Report comment
WOW! You guys ROCK! Thank you for all your dedication and commitment. As a virgin this year, it was the incredible spirit of generosity and acceptance throughout Burning Man that rocked me to my soul. To see this part of it absolutely humbles me. Thank you to everyone of you out there ensuring the future of Burning Man. And Thank you to my incredible experienced campmates that taught me all the Burning Man principles. Our camp is in the GREEN! WooHoo!
Report comment
Thanks for all you do PRT! Next year I’m leaving you guys my leftover beer. I always bring too much. Glad our whole block was green this year! 6:45 and C! See you next year! THANKS!!!
Report comment
Oh man…this reminds me of FOD walks during day shift while stationed at McGuire AFB…I tried my best to grab it where I saw it..next year, def walking around with a couple plastic bags to clean as I wander. Looking at the map, I think our camp was totally green, which means we did our job decently well. I did find a ton of those cheap glow bracelets all over the place…must have grabbed at least a dozen…who knows how many more there were. Maybe some sort of warning about keeping track of those when out partying would help? Alternate glow wear suggestions, perhaps? This was my first year at BM, and seeing people rake sand for things they may have missed around their camps was awesome and really brought home the idea of leaving no trace whatsoever. Thanks for being such a great example for this virgin. I’ll do my best to keep that going. You guys doing cleanup are my heroes, thanks for doing such an excellent job
Report comment
DPW rocks… Thank you so much for all your efforts. We know you are out there and we love you for it. Is this the same The Hun who received the puffy paint pbr’s? If it is?… love you. Suggestion: A Moop line up walking along Esplanade from 2 all the way through 10 during the event might be a force positive way to remind people what is asked from them as a community… I’ll do it. – mk
Report comment
Biting flies??? where do they come from? I have been to the Burn several years and have only ever seen a few insects…. are they a result of us/garbage/portos potties?
Report comment
Thank you CULT :D
Teresa – Congratulations on being green, and way to do it right the first time!!
Danimal – Heck yeah, free beer and a MOOP-free camp? You are DPW’s new favorite person.
Esper – Thanks for your vigilance! The glowsticks are an ongoing problem, and we try to raise awareness but there are a lot of people we don’t seem to have reached yet. Someday they’ll go out of style, hopefully sooner than later.
Magic Kristian – Yes that’s me! Hi!!! We actually do a DPW MOOP line on Wednesday afternoon, walking along Esplanade from 2:00 to 10:00 (or at least as far as we can, because it’s also a MOOP pub crawl). Come join us next year! I think it would be even more effective if there was an official line sweep, listed in the What Where When. Could be a lot of fun.
lifeisshort – They come from the surrounding area, and were especially common this year. You don’t see them as much during the event, but that might just be due to the fact that they have more people to chew on. Pre and post event, whenever you’re near one of the shorelines you stand a chance of getting bit.
Report comment
Thanks Hun. We were in the red block at 4:45 and B. There was a camp behind us (we did not have the entire block from B to C) that left a very large pile of bikes and trash when they left. A small portion of our crew stayed until Friday and did a very thorough walk of our 100×150 camp. We had a few virgins, but a lot of us have camped in green camps in prior years. Needless to say, we were all very shocked at the result and very curious as to why the whole camp was flagged red.
Thanks again. Any info provided is greatly appreciated and will help us plan for next year.
Report comment
Thank you MOOPers! I’m proud to say my camp was all green this year (6:45@A, esplinade block). But the work you guys do in the heat and the sun without any shade… wow. Thank you for making BM happen again each year.
Report comment
how can one become part of the MOOP team??
Report comment
Yogi Bear, Dr. Pepper, signing in. It’s been two years, I actually know some of these guys!
Report comment
Yogi Bear! Dr. Pepper! Nice to hear from you! You were missed this year, ya crazy moonwalker. xoxoxo
Indigo – I’m so sorry to hear about that. I wish I had all the information to tell you why it was marked red, but our notes just say it was very MOOPy. It sounds like maybe one of their trash bags blew into your area, or something similar. If you weren’t in a theme camp, you don’t have to worry about any consequences as far as placement — and if you know you cleaned up your area, then that’s all you really need to know. Still it’s a bummer, and I’m sorry I can’t give you more detail.
Dr. Blitz – Congratulations on getting marked green! We love what we do, it’s totally worth it. Thanks for making our job easier.
Nichole – You can submit a volunteer questionnaire here: http://www2.burningman.com/people/ or you can also get involved with a theme camp or art project that needs a LNT lead. Thanks for being interested in helping out!!
Report comment
Wow! That video demonstrates so much love for the playa…thank you again!
Report comment
s budget, trimming costs and expenditures is always a help.
The store is the perfect place to buy branded products at discounted
rates. I was also on a limited budget with less than $350
to spend.
Report comment
Comments are closed.