Airborne Moop

[ShaniJ]

Hey Cherry Fairy,

Thanks for your posts, we are going to discourage lanterns all together this year/ we also looking into eco friendly lanterns. Not only do they litter but they are lank dangerous, infact burnt a hole in someones tent last year.
Re greeters, I am hoping to have a full education leaflet and greeters to get well briefed. I would like each theme camp to get a "pack" which will include signs for their rubbish so they can start recycling, we hoping to get local farms to collect slops for pigs etc. The lanyards also sound great. Would you be interested in joining the next moop meeting? Not sure date yet but early feb sometime
Shani

[wintershall]

heya moopsters,

had a good chat with kris steyn (i wanted to include him into this thread, but he operates under a pseudonym like so many others...)
at parklife last weekend regarding this burning issue; i didn't know about these allegedly eco-friendly
bio-degradable local option until now. i see they're selling for R 30 each; now kris came up with his own no moop no toot version.
his idea is a base made of paper mache, attached with 2 hemp/cotton strings to the balloon; this whole contraption will then burn down entirely. he's willing to produce a prototype and make a video. if it looks and works well, we could outsource a local community and start a small production line; pay per lantern if the cost is below R30 incl. profit for the maker, sure they can't cost more than R15 to make, you pay a person R10 per lantern, he/she makes 10 per day and earns R100.

we make 1000 lanterns, that's R25000, money that could come out of an art grand i.e. - the lanterns could then by handed out at the gate to each group of burners (to give one to each & everyone would be an overkill with ca. 4500 participants) as the first gift you receive at AB; and a gift from AB directly (question: where does all the money go ?!?), nice little burning gesture, don'tcha think ? i case you don't have anything to burn...

or abandon the idea because of safety issues altogether... ?!? there're plenty of other things burning though... those lanterns do have their own magic i have to say, if i think back of the burn in 2008, it was one of the most magical moments in my life...

[krissteyn]

Hi all , I raised this point last year - great to see its still an issue Just seen wintershall's post above my .02c worth follows

The main problem is the wire in the Chinese version. My suggestion is that a paper mache cradle / wax candle / string be made as a composite unit.
This will be fully biodegradable and mostly burn out. It would make a wonderful business for a NGO or similar and AB should insist that they are the suppliers , collect your ordered lantern at the gate with your entrance - and thus generate necessary funds for processing MOOP.

Unfortunately , not in a position to prototype or YOUtube it - suggest a "bright spark" out there steals the ideas and runs with it...
Or alternatively - previous post here gave a local supplier URL...

Kris Steyn

[GoFisch]

I absolutely love the lanterns. They are beautiful going up and a couple of years ago when they went up and up and up was awesome!! A thought occurs, though I'm not sure how feasible it is: Isn't there any way to tether the lantern - particularly if they're not bio-degradable. Then they can go up but one also has control of cleaning up once the magic is over and prevent accidentally setting anything else on fire. I realise they won't necessarily be able to go so far up, but it further occurs that one could construct a pretty awesome hanging burning artwork that way...

[haront]

They do look great and they are really a marvel when being used for an event or something of that sort.

Though people could argue that it is to go down when the burning piece has gotten off already, there are times that it could hit an area right before the alcohol on the seemingly piece of hard paper runs out.

And when than happens, that is when the fire hazard idea comes into play.

[Ranger Bob]

Lanterns were a right rotten nightmare this year

someone or a number of someones had a load and even after numerous calls and interventions to not launch they continued to have covert launches

its a really difficult situation for a ranger to walk up to people letting off lanterns; hard to not come across as a dictating party pooper

[ShaniJ]

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 however 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 the another positive is more people know what the word moop stands for now. I will be posting images of moop found on Facebook soon.

[Sam]

So true Ranger Bob. Jeez but I felt like such a grinch asking people not to release any more : [

Our camp neighbours made a plan and tied strings to the lanterns, and made a truly beautiful sort of floating light installation.
Then sat on their camp chairs basking under the glow and grinning like cheshire cats.