4x4 Action Group

So.what are your guys thoughts on Burning plastic or Burnable Rubble at night Braai fire? When camping.


Cenario

Campsite have no Dust bins and you remove all your own Rubbish to where you are able to dump.
Do you burn most Burnable or not to reduce the volume of rubbish?

Yip you will have the unbearable plastic burning smell.

Give us some of your different opinions

For 1 I normally burn the plastic bags the wood is transported in when I make the fire.Makes my life easier on trash duty only when no Dustbin facilities are available

As a tree-hugger, I only burn Wood and paper, I believe all plastic must be recycled. And if I can avoid burning wood and paper, i would.

All paper can be burnt. No stress. Plastic , very small amount . No 2 liter plastic bottels , and no tins or beer cans.

I only occasionally buy indigenous hard
woods and then savour it … only burning
2 or 3 pieces a session on a small fire.

Normally buy softwoods and generall try and buy alien.

I nearly always start a fire with balls of newspaper and v seldom use bought firelighters.

Only burn plastic ( a 6pack wrapper) to help things along if the paper and or wood is a bit damp or uncooperative …

Im a LandyMan and take everything back out from camps with me .
‘ Leave only Footprints & a few territorial oil droppings etc … type of Landy Midden.

Normally All my rubbish goes home, at Saturday's fire somebody chucked their vacuum bag into my Coles, regrettably instead of throwing someone else's rubbish away, I chucked into the side of the main fire, it was stupid and I apologize,
At the same time Esther saw a prominent figure throw plastic into the fire,
Again my act was stupid, normally my rubbish travels home same as today.

Ok so lets get som trash Advice same time

Let us hear your Boer maak n plan ways to compact your trash to manageable size when doing Overlanding in some out of the book places.

The generation of rubbish and what to do with it is always a problem while overloading but should never be an issue when camping for a weekend. There is a big difference between having to take care of a week or more worth of trash to having to take back a few bits of paper and plastic from a camping weekend. Don't be lazy. Just take it home with you.

Burning your trash in a communal fire is considered bad etiquette, especially if it is my fire. It may also be considered not environmentally friendly. My view of the environment issue is that in wild places like Bots, Namibia, Zambia etc it makes sense to just burn it because if you dispose of it in the next village or town it ends up blowing in the wind anyway.

Consider reusable containers and bags. Yes it is a hassle to decant your tin of baked beans into a Tupperware or to repack your wood into a canvas bag but doing so can reduce the amount of trash you have to carry with you on long trips quite substantially.

I try to compact each empty recycleable container as small as possible.

Plastic bottles flattened under foot and caps put back on to keep the vacuum
Tins flattened under foot.
Milk and juice containers folded as flat as possible.
All other shapes and sizes are folded so as to take up as little space as possible.

I don't burn plastic. I don't separate out paper from plastic.

All other trash will go into a separate refuse bag.

This all goes into a black refuse bag, and is all taken out of the camping site and dropped into a refuse bin at the closest town. Preferably in a bin marked "recycling" with whatever type of recycling, and other trash into the relevant bin. This of course if the town has such separate facilities.

Mad Manny wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 28, 2024 6:08 pm

If it still a kuier fire then anyone throwing a tissue, paper plate, baby, plastic, bones etc into the fire should be summarily shot.
However, if the kuier is done, then, maybe, paper plates and stuff can be burnt as long as it doesn't bother others & all turns to ash.
Problem is, some wombat will throw a beer can, food bones or other crap in....

Babies in fires? That's a little radical.

You brought it there somehow, thus you have space in your vehicle to remove it again. Apart from the occasional paper plate, I do not believe anything else should be burnt in the fire. Strap a crate on your roof, or something insulated within the vehicle to keep it from smelling.

The best solution I have found is when packing at home for a trip, try and minimize the rubbish you will encounter when the food is used up or drinks are finished. Beer cans are much smaller when flattened vs glass bottles, refill water bottles from auxiliary water tanks etc. Food packaging can also be done much smaller/tidier than the version you buy at your local supermarket/butcher. Overall this helps with space saving and reduces the amount of rubbish as you travel. When reaching the next filling station/town, dump in an orderly fashion.

Also if you throw your food in the fire that you have not finished eating, you have too much money, rather hand your extra money to charity, or eat it up the next day! I do not want to see or smell your Soy infused, gluten free, dairy free tasteless vegan burger try an burn for the next three hours whilst hearing it is the healthy alternative to bloody/fresh natural food.

My thoughts:

Only when (and only then) when the social has ended, throw the paper plates and other paper waste in fire.
The rest (plastic and cans), you need to take back with you.
No food waste in fire either. We once did that only to find the Kaokoland sheppard/Himba dogs scraping it out of the ashes the next morning (it will also attract wild animals, which is a No-No).

Take extra tupperware holders for left overs.
Avoid plastic, Thats a general rule, camping or no camping.
Else, if not reusable, then crushable, foldable and recyclable containers.

I saw Bugger dispose of some plastic. the plastic bags used to carry wood..I saw nothing wrong with that. It did not bother me or upset me in anyway. In fact, I was very happy that he did not leave plastic rubbish lying around.
In fact I threw 3 bags directly onto the flames with wood inside the bags. It did not smell. Note this was after coals were taken for braaing.

Well I admit, I have been throwing my plastic that the wood is carried in into the fire for all my years as well.
I am yet to smell the plastic as I see it causing no harm or excessive smoke. My cigar smells and smokes more,
Actually, that's another topic, " Does it irritate you if a fellow camper decides to smoke his cigar whilst sitting around the camp fire chilling and kuiering??)
As mentioned above by somebody, I would rather burn it than have it dumped anywhere else which may cause a bigger issue. ie, animals eating it or it lying around around waiting to morph into something. Have some of you actually driven pass or visited a dump yard and seen how much plastic is just lying around.? You will be shocked.!

I think we have a bigger problem with people not killing off the fire after a kuier and going to sleep. or those that cannot even cover up the ashes after a wild camp etc. ( Have you seen some areas on the Giyani River Trip.?)

The only reason people recycle Plastic, is so they can make other plastic things which make them money.!!!!

Besides, The Ozone seems to be holding up very well.

When wild camping, I burn everything flammable in the fire, but not whilst cooking or socialising. Unless it is a bag of wood, in which case I just normally chuck that on - bag and all. But I drive a Datsun and therefore I am a philistine... Note: I speak of flammable - not cans, not food - plastics and paper.

I also opt for tins for beverages. In fact - I am so conditioned drinking from a tin that I no longer buy dumpies unless I am "spoiling myself" and buy a beer that does not come canned - like the Jack Black Skeleton Coast IPA. Which, after Tafel Lager 500ml tinnies (we no longer get theme here), is probably my favourite beer on the planet.

The reason for this is that you can flatten tins and fit a gazillion empties in the rubbish bin on the spare wheel. I used to use the tins purely because the didn't pop open when travelling rough roads, but they have skimped so much on aluminium in your normal can these days that they rub through on the sides and you lose beer.

A side note: For packing your left-over braaivleis, never underestimate tinfoil. I always have a roll in the "kitchen drawer" in the truck. Obviously, it goes in the rubbish bag, but you crumple it up small and it takes less space than average tupperware.