How do you solve a problem like MOOP?

[Ard]

Hi S,

Thanks for your comments! A lot of thought is being put into how best to communicate the MOOP message. The most important way that this meme needs to spread is via the community, and it seems you and your camp are leading the charge on that

Ciao,

Adriaan

[Cherry Fairy]

I'd like to make a couple of suggestions:
1. Greeters need to be briefed - a large notice board inside the tin hut with the key messages they MUST relay to all arrivals. I've often forgotten to tell people some things in the flurry of arrivals. Maybe little cards on lanyards for around our necks for greeters... nice Souvenier and quick reminder of the key messages? I'd be happy to make them - have them made - if people give me input on the Greeters messages?
2. At Burning Man, the local communities around BM - Gerlach etc - offer refuse and recycle services. They make a bit of money - charge $5 a bag I think for rubbish - and the community actually loves and welcomes burners and burners get a place to dispose of their rubbish while supporting local community
Just my thoughts
Let me know what you think and I will happily run with either - looking into it

[Richard H. Palmer]

Maybe we can treat people like computers and punch the information in. No? Oh ok. my bad...

[metastofasis]

Could not agree more. Here is my suggestion.
Tell Burners up front about MOOP, not just there. When we leave our homes, take stuff that can burn to pack things in. Take a box with a papsak, you can burn the box and the papsak flattens. Don't take tins and bottles, they just make space to cart back. Take foldy, flatty, squashy stuff that makes little space when finished.
BUT TELL EVERYONE UP FRONT, BEFORE THEY GO.
It is all well and good knowing about AB, but after 2 AB's now, I have only learnt that lesson. Let's try and educate those that may have the problem of not knowing what to take.
Perhaps at the AB functions it could be discussed, post threads, make Burners aware.
Also, as much as I am aware that it is a take in/take out event, perhaps if black bags were made available at the gate, those who forgot to bring them could not have the excuse to dump. Have the MOOP MAID brigade asking if folk have enough bags. Funny the things that you forget to pack. Oh well, this is just my idea. Living for April.

[Richard H. Palmer]

@metastofasis: In my humble opinion, giving people bags will just encourage them to dump it somewhere. No. They must be educated. Before during and after the event. "No Glass bottles" at the event will go a good distance. How about a 'Moop Representative' in each theme camp. When applying for a theme camp they need to name their 'Moop Rep'

The 'Welcoming Comity' should be the ones grilling people about what they are going to be doing with their 'wast' during and after the event.
"Punch the information in"

[Paul Greenfella]

I would rather see punters separate their waste from the onset.....

By this education around recycling is key and possibly to supply different coloured bags at the entrance with directions on how and where to off load the waste....

At this point we should start thinking about waste as a resource and not something merely to be discarded and re-cycle the idea!

The international colours for recycling separation are:
Grey for glass
Blue for cans
Yellow for plastic
Red for terapak

Central disposal points for food stuffs that can be fed to the local farmers pigs would also help. Maybe near the airfield.

Personal waste (nappies, condoms, pads, tampons, snot tissues, bloody bandages, etc..) is generally incinerated. Providing an incineration point is a detraction from the leave no trace!

Maybe having MOOP patrols doing skits about recycling, it could become an entirely new theme camp.

To have a few locations where people can drop of their recycling will be useful. Maybe you know of a place in Worcester or Tousriver. Ceres is another challenge but could be found.

This is a big under taking, keep the faith.

[haront]

I think that apart from the emerging problem of continuously getting and piling up more trash, it will also be a point to ponder on, where do we actually dump our trash? I mean, there isn't much space available and we have a lot of trash that comes our way. We could call for something like a trash disintegrator or something similar but that is a little harsh on the idea to say the least.

[ShaniJ]

You dump your stuff the same way you dump your sh1t at home. You split it, recycle and compost it.
You do it at the burn, take your stuff home and dispose of it!!! That is the only way it should be done. You brought it and you take it back. Take responsibility for your stuff. You cant have a trash disintigrator because we need to realize that our trash cant be disintegrated just like that. We need to be conscious of everything we buy and use and whats going to happen to it once we are done with it. The stuff that ppl bring from china town shops should be heavily discouraged. You should put all your compost in a separate container and your recyclebales should be added to your recycling pick up once in the city.

If you read anything that went online before the burn then you would have seen and read about this. There was information in most of the toilets at the burn and signs everywhere saying take your stuff home, leave no trace etc.

This is a reply i just posted about airborne moop and other moop issues.Sorry if i come across as agro, this actually all just ruined my burn this year.

Reply to airbourne moop
The amount of times that i ran towards people who were letting the lanterns, asked them not to and once i left they just carried on was ridiculous. Heart breaking in fact, the whole moop issue both on the ground and in the sky pretty much ruined my burn. The amount of unconscious f**ks that i came across was just plain stupid. I was spoken to rudely by people when i tried to educate and stop air born moop from happening. I rate we should actually just cancel the entire event in the name of moop, maybe then ppl will get the clue. How people dont get it im not sure. Obviously these people dont manage their waste when living in the city either. Cigarette's should be banned and only rollies with biodegradable filters should be allowed but we cant police people. Theme camps really need to take into consideration that they will be a dump site and they need to make room for that. I do think the whole situation of moop was better this year, there were less black bags at the end and i didnt see stuff dropped on the side of the road this year. Glow sticks and their joiners were huge moop, along with butts and feathers. Everything that is discouraged got brought. There was a clear disregard for moop awareness and while a stack of people were getting high on the sunday smoke up at the land of soft things, a small group of dedicated people were picking up other peoples rubbish. It really shows what is actually importrant to people, yep getting high not looking after our enviroment. There is so much one can do to make people aware the rest is up to each person. I think another positive is more people know what the word moop stands for now. I will be posting images of moop found on Facebook soon.

[liz linsell]

Hi All

There is another MOOP issue which I would like to raise and that is POOP, yes human poo....
The second morning of the burn i awoke to a mound of poo right next to the vehicle i was sleeping in. Not lekker. Someone i know woke to the same only it was right in front of her tent and even more disgusting that lazy culprit had the audacity to use her towel to clean themselves leaving said towel right there.

This year there were in excess of 80 toilets provided. This was more than sufficient!

[Travis]

@Shani -

Damn, for a lady as strong as yourself to say that this ruined your burn this year, that's saying a lot, and hell, I entirely know exactly what you mean. You worked damn hard, to have people piss on your battery. We had the same thing in 2010, when we hosted a dancefloor and ended up trucking 5 full bags of trash back to KZN. That kinda shit can wear you down and wear the shine right off of something beautiful, and that’s wrong on many levels.

To be fair, Shani, you were right in the thick of it as far as MOOP goes, so you were always going to be more aware of it than others. But as for those uneducated fucks, that’s the problem right there – everyone can try and spread the message from an organisational position but if all those people want to do is get wasted and behave like muppets, then we have a big problem, a problem which manifests itself most visibly as the shit left behind. I’m just happy that numbers were limited this time round. If they hadn’t been…well, the results would have been predictably more chaotic.

How you solve this? Damn, that’s a big question, but for me the best method would be through heavy-gauge, military-grade education drive. Images of piles of shit outside need to be broadcast. Images of bags of trash left behind by theme and sound camps. Images which shock people. A Name & Shame list needs to happen – people need to feel it and know that they’re responsible. This event is about ownership – it is your AfrikaBurn, after all - and to those who say these would be hectic measures or heavy-handed, I’d say wake up - we’re a radical culture, and this would be another avenue of radical self expression. If some people get freaked out, great. They need to be, in order to snap them out their ignorant bliss.

On the note of flying lanterns, sheesh, I’d like to have been there to give those idiots some lip. Next year I will; I’ll do it with you, Shani, and tell them our tent got burnt, to bring it home and make it a reality. Shit, I was busting the MOOP speeches on the MASHED truck, it’s a short hop to taking the talk mobile.

The most important thing is that we get the message out there, and leave nobody in any doubt about what is and is not acceptable on a MOOP level. I’d be happy to lend my skills to making this a prominent and unavoidable part of the info that goes out for the 2013 event.