Leave No Trace education and a 'pack it in, pack it out' ethic
#00093
Teach and normalise an outdoor ethic in which visitors carry out everything they bring in — including micro-litter and food scraps — sustained through education, signage and partnerships with land agencies and outdoor organisations.
Parent issue
#00079 Litter in trails, parks and backcountry where no one is paid to collect it
Sustainable Development Goals
Location
Description
Mechanism
Build a widely shared outdoor ethic — most memorably "pack it in, pack it out" — through consistent education, trailhead signage, ranger contact, guidebooks, and partnerships with land-management agencies, outdoor retailers and clubs. The aim is to make carrying out all of one's waste (down to wrapper corners and fruit peels) the unquestioned default among people using wild spaces, where collection and enforcement are absent.
Where it fits
The primary lever for the wilderness/trails facet, where bins and paid collection are impractical and the binding constraint is visitor behaviour.
Operating profile and limits
Low-cost and scalable, and effective at shifting norms among engaged users, but it relies on voluntary adoption and reaches new or casual visitors least well; high-traffic sites can still degrade despite it. Works best reinforced by trailhead infrastructure and, in the hardest-hit places, by mandatory pack-out rules.
Sub-issues
0Case studies
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