#leave-no-trace-behaviour

In wild and remote areas there are few or no bins and no cleaning crews, so even small amounts of dropped trash — wrappers, micro-litter, food scraps, human waste — persist, harm wildlife, and degrade the very experience that drew visitors there.

In heavily used or fragile areas, require visitors to pack out all waste — including human waste — and provide the means (issued pack-out kits, locking trailhead bins), turning the Leave No Trace ethic into an enforced condition of access.

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.

Shape the cues that drive littering: keep spaces visibly clean (a clean place signals 'nobody litters here'), and pair 'most people don't litter' (descriptive) with 'littering is not OK' (injunctive) messages, which together change behaviour more than either alone.

A controlled field experiment by Cialdini and colleagues at Petrified Forest National Park tested anti-theft signage on visitor paths where marked pieces of petrified wood were placed. A sign stressing a negative descri…

In the Grand Canyon river corridor, the National Park Service mandates that all river trip permit holders pack out all trash and solid human waste using portable toilet systems. Compliance is enforced as a condition of…

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy applies Leave No Trace principles across the ~2,200-mile Appalachian Trail through on-trail education and signage, promoting pack-it-in-pack-it-out norms among one of the US's highest-t…

Established in 1994 by the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics in partnership with the National Park Service, US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and US Fish & Wildlife Service. The programme delivers the…