~ Leaving No Trace ~
The Burning Man community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.
Dear Black Rock City:
Normally today I would write a blog post about how we can all continue to do better at Leaving No Trace on the playa.
Instead, it is my great pleasure to tell you that we have passed a new milestone, reached a new high water mark, accomplished a feat never before seen in the history of Burning Man: An almost entirely GREEN Esplanade.
Moop Map Legend
GREEN: Low Impact to No Impact Trace. The moop line moves at a normal walking pace, picking up very little.
YELLOW: Moderate Impact Trace. The line must slow down in order to pick up all the moop here.
RED: High Impact Trace. The line must stop to clean up hotspots or very moopy areas.
We’re not posting details of what was found in each spot. If you are a theme camp, your Placement representative may have more detailed information for you in a few months (when the entire Moop Map is finalized). Please be patient: we have much more work to do before we can pass detailed information along.
That beautiful, moop-free Esplanade is a testament to the hard work and dedication of Esplanade camps, and the Burners who donate their spare time and money, year after year, to bring the party to Black Rock City’s main drag. In so many ways, the Esplanade embodies the best of what Burning Man can be, in all ten principles. With the amount of traffic these camps receive, the infrastructure they build, the stunts they pull off — it’s incredible that they have also succeeded so admirably in Leaving No Trace.
“These Esplanade camps are professionals. They know how to do it right.”
– Stabby Abby, Playa Restoration Scribe
This is also a testament to all of us who take care to control our moop and leave things better than we found them, even in the maelstrom of Esplanade in all its sound and fury.
People of Black Rock City, let’s have a BIG round of applause for the camps of the Esplanade, and for everyone who helped them Leave No Trace in 2014. And let’s learn from this success. If the Esplanade can do it, so can every camp on the playa.
Hip hip!
Support Esplanade LNT in 2015
The Playa Restoration crew loves to celebrate Black Rock City’s ongoing efforts to Leave No Trace. Each year, we meet one afternoon at 2:00, and moop our way along the entire Esplanade to 10:00. The catch: We stop at every bar on the way.
The moop marathon is our show of love for Burning Man. Want to participate? Create your own moop march!
Stay tuned for more, as the moop line marches through the streets of BRC. We’ll keep posting the results just as quickly as we can compile them.
Want more photos & goodies from the Playa Restoration team? Search #BM2014. You can also follow The Hun: Facebook – Twitter – Instagram.
You sure you got the coordinates right? (I kid … I kid.)
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Honestly, the crew was a little bummed, because it was a very boring day. No good moop to pick up!
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PS, Will – that second photo is the reason I was late to our little get-together.
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Can’t wait to hear tomorrow’s post. I know they did gypsy flower power today and it was BAD. My guess it will be solid black.
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I would just like to point out *all* the burners out there that *anyone* at Burning Man (not just DPW) can join in on the MOOP pub crawl. Come get drunk… er MOOP up with us! Yeah, that’s it… MOOP up.
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@the hun: totally understandable … love that it’s happening!
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I’m getting my moop picker upper thingy ready NOW!
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As an Esplanade camp we appreciate the kind words and recognition.A good feeling to know our campers efforts were worthwhile.
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Still no mention of The Lost Hotel and Caravanscicle. camps that were organized by a member of the board of directors. Whats up with the sound camps at 10. They must have favored status as well. Woo Hoo the only camps whose crap blows into the open playa on the slightest breeze came back clean. What a shocker.
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As a coordinator for Above the Limit, I would live to apologize to the Burning Man community and to the DPW cleanup crew for our performance this year on the MOOP sweep. We have always taken LNT seriously and have even won LNT Theme Camp of the Year in the past, but this year brought with it a few significant challenges post-event for which we were clearly not prepared.
This is not an excuse, of course. Part of radical self-reliance is owning your actions and if we were not prepared for the worst case scenarios, we should not have undertaken such a large-scale camp. Rest assured that we will learn from this and look forward to returning to that lovely shade of green in which we have always taken pride.
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Phoenix, you’re doing it right. I’m sorry that things didn’t work out for your camp as far as LNT goes but thank you for owning the problem and learning from it so it doesn’t happen again. Kudos to you and your camp.
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I was there last year Burning Man 2013 and I stay at Esplanade camp with my artist friend Suliman and Michael was in charge of setting up the camp with water and cooking did a great job :)
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What does the red X at 2.15 & H mean? When we left on Tuesday that whole block was MOOP free and pristine. We even took photos to prove it!
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So. I’m just asking for clarification. Are the big red X’s in fact storage containers?
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@Jayman and @Panic: The red X’s are not containers; they mark abandoned items. The abandoned item map was released this year. See http://blog.burningman.com/2014/09/environment/moop-map-2014-the-map-youve-never-seen/ for more details.
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The Lost Hotel has a picture of their cleaned site on their Facebook page. They’re confused as to why they got a red when the only moop remaining were some cigarette butts. Does that really warrant a red mark? I don’t smoke, but was constantly finding cigarette butts that blew into our camp.
The Lost Hotel is suggesting Caravanscicle sabotaged their site after leaving the playa.
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If the lost hotel thought they were clean after leaving cigarette butts then they don’t understand what leave no trace means. Cigarette butts equal garbage and says a lot about the type of folk that don’t see it as moop. Even if it really blew into your camp you are responsible. We have one person stay on our camp site until Tuesday to make sure nothing gets dumped or blown onto our responsibility. The lost hotel obviously didn’t have a plan. Blaming someone else for your lack of fore thought is typical of those that see themselves as above the rest. My advice to you is don’t come next year.
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@mutant vehicle owners of america
Cigarette butts shouldn’t earn a red mark. A yellow mark, perhaps if there are tons of butts laying around. It sounds like they made an effort on the butts, raking their site, but there were too many. Fine. But the Xs were reserved for large items like jugs and couches, none of which were there at the time Lost Hotel left the playa.
Also, are we supposed to believe that DPW Ghetto was clean for the first time since records began?
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Janele
Still making excuses and deflecting the lost hotels responsibility. Pointing out the DPW only proves your elitist attitude.
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….and throwing cigarette butts on the ground is just stupid. Why would anyone in any camp tolerate that behavior?
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@mutant vehicle owners of america
I know it fits nicely into your narrative that wealthy people are the badguys. That’s cute, but you’ll grow out of that soon enough.
The Lost Hotel were the workers who built Caravancicle, I’m afraid you can’t hate them because they’re poor like you. Too bad. But at least you can hate them because they admitted they couldn’t get all the cigarette butts up.
How about starting a petition to ban everyone who camped with The Lost Hotel? And also ban anyone with a positive net worth, since they don’t pay any taxes and never do anything and don’t know how to survive at Burning Man without having their asses wiped. Only poor people know how to do that.
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Janele – That is not it at all. I’m not talking about banning anyone or hating anyone. Accepting and carrying out responsibilities is the topic. Thank you for your sarcasm and have a nice day.
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6:20 and J, all green! The rain on Sunday caused our carpet to stick to the Playa like it had been glued on. When I pulled it up on Monday, hundreds of pieces of carpet were stuck in the playa. It looked like the ground was growing carpet. I was on my own, and spent hours plucking the tiny pieces out of the rock hard surface. Would have been there forever if not for my great neighbor, Yaddi, who saved my knees and did so much to LNT.
Cigarette butts would have been a piece of cake, can’t believe “it was too much”. Lazy is the first word that comes to mind.
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Cigarette butts don’t “blow” – they’re heavy and stay were dropped. If you had cigarette butts in your camp they were dropped by Members or guests. If there were too many to pick up then you had a moop problem that you don’t even see as moop!
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Jayman, Panic – the red X’s are large abandoned moop. More info here: http://blog.burningman.com/2014/09/environment/moop-map-2014-the-map-youve-never-seen/
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Janele, the DPW Ghetto is now TRULY green! We score ourselves the same way as everyone else in the city. There’s a lot of peer pressure out here ;) and the Ghetto crew was tired of being a red zone. So they mooped it up. If you look back over the past few years, you’ll see other staff camps being marked red and yellow as well, then turning green over time. It’s all peer pressure. Nobody wants to be That Camp.
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Simoneski, GREAT job!! We found a lot of camps this year where carpet and astroturf bits were left behind. They are tough to get once the material disintegrates like that. Next year, try bringing area rugs!
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Cigarette butts, really? that is the easiest to pick up! Try getting wood splinters. That was one of the reasons I was so relieved to have green. We did a lot of creative construction on playa this year and tarps got knocked around a couple times and I picked up so many wood splinters and was afraid we missed some.
I yell at anyone tossing cigarette butts on the ground, and I am a smoker, so really? that is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. that was the first thing I learned at a burn, don’t toss your butts on the ground. That one thing changed my life and how I looked at the planet with LNT 24/7!
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8 and esplanade was mopped by sk8 camp. We had to clean our site all over on Monday from the woodchips
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Go Camp Fur and the Esplanade Block of 6:45, great job everyone out there picking up butts, fluff, fur, and even a beer can or two sitting next to the oil lamp posts. Everyone was working super hard after the event, but I saw a lot of MOOP during.
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What does an empty red square mean? Specifically on top of a green area?
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One of the things I love to do at burning man is putting in my community moop hours. When the mood strikes me, I take a trash bag and a rubber glove and randomly cycle across the playa picking up any moop I see. Sometimes I’ll pick an artwork I love and moop it’s surrounding area. Usually several people stop for a chat, and moop along with me for a while. I’ve met some really cool people whilst de-mooping. I love being that close to the gorgeous playa, really looking at it up close and thanking it for having me. One year just after the temple burn I kicked something hard and found it to be a huge and very vibey crystal. I posted it in lost and found but nobody claimed it so I kept it as a gift from the Playa.
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A green Esplanade?!!?
A green Ghetto?!!?
I guess we’re all learning something here – woo hoo!!!!
That MOOP pub crawl sounds like a blast – count me in.
DPW – you folks are amazing. One of these years, maybe we won’t need you to stay so long for RESTO. But I’m grateful for all your efforts. Many thanks!
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Logan5, I believe those are carpet and astroturf spots, where the edges of a carpeted/turfed area were very moopy because when the camp pulled up its flooring, the material disintegrated and left all its edges embedded in the playa. Thanks to the rain, we had a LOT of those spots this year.
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You guys are awesome… thanks for caring and thanks for mooping!!
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To those with carpet moop problems… For next year, please consider bringing billboard vinyl for your floors. A fresh sheet of it, typically 14 by 40 feet, costs only $50 where I live. It makes zero moop!
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Woo, good job Esplanade! And Ghetto!
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Better than carpet or a vinyl tarps, canvass drop clothes are a superior ground cover. MOOP shows up easily against the off-white color and they can be swept with a broom. They strain the rain and other liquids, rather than facilitating long lasting puddles. Put down tight with big nails and washers, they withstand a lot of foot traffic and make a good floor. They last for years and we have always gotten green at VooDoo Soup.
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Twice before we left people dropped off moop at my address, and we cleaned it, and now there is a large red X on our camp. Moop map is not accurate
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