Why Kleenex is for your nose, not your other end...

by Irene Auerbach

The more of us enjoy visiting the Alps, the bigger the problem of litter is growing - so much so that in a recent article in the ÖAV's 'Bergauf' magazine, the English term 'littering' was actually used.

Top of their (justified) hate list is the cigarette filter which should find its way into special collections, but at the very least into the bin, and never simply be dropped on the ground any old where. Not only do they account for half the litter that's left around (presumably in volume) but they are highly toxic: after a smoker has finished with them, the tobacco remnants and the bodies of the filters are saturated with sulphurous residues, carcinogenic heavy metals, tar, nicotine and a lot more, which can ruin 40-60 litres of (previously ... ) clean ground water and contaminate the ground with which that water is in contact. Through soil and water, plants and animals, the problem works its way back up through the food chain, finally returning to its cause: us. Thus, no matter whether you're in a built-up area or in natural surroundings, cigarette stubs with filters must be properly binned: no exceptions!

If out on a day's walking or climbing we look around and there's not a building in sight, we are basically thrilled: lovely, unspoilt surroundings! But we ignore the fact that we will inevitably leave the verges of our route slightly less unspoilt than we found it. 'Bergauf' enjoys the English euphemism 'call of nature', pointing out that this topic needs to be discussed rather more openly than it has been to date. There is possible contamination of ground water and surface water, and we could pass on infections to other creatures through bacteria, viruses and parasites which are invariably found in the faeces of warm-blooded creatures, be they human or canine, even if the producer of the faeces is not displaying any symptoms of illness. In many countries walkers and climbers already carry self-sealing bags (Ziploc) in which to take such waste back down to the valley, as we already (I hope) do with food packaging, bottles and tins for safe disposal. The very least we should do is move well away from paths and routes and particularly from any water, standing or running, use stones or, if available, sticks to dig a little hole and, after the deed is done, refill that hole. In rocky areas it might be impossible to dig a hole, but then the answer is a mini cairn to cover up what needs to be covered up.

And to return to the title: please, PLEASE carry toilet paper for that purpose. Modern tissues, intended for use on noses, are carefully constructed to be tough and can take 1-5 years to decay. Toilet tissues are equally carefully engineered to disintegrate quickly, or our urban drains would be permanently clogged up. Blow your nose on several layers of toilet tissue if you only wish to carry one variety in your rucksack! Also bear in mind (or in your bladder) that the place that looks the obvious one to do what you need to do, is likely to have appeared equally obvious to other mountain-lovers ... Particularly at the starts and ends of popular routes, the smell can become pretty off-putting, and the vegetation discoloured by lots of urine. If there's a public convenience, always use it rather than the great outdoors.

Having got that most important topic off my chest, we all know that glass bottles never rot: at best they will remain unsightly for ever. At worst they either act as a lens gathering the sun's rays and spontaneously lighting a fire with potentially horrendous consequences or, if broken, cut into the feet of wildlife (or the bottoms of other walkers sitting down innocently for a picnic). Plastic canisters and polystyrene are equally indestructible: a plastic bottle may actually disintegrate in 5000 years. Many of us believe that it's OK to leave organic waste like banana skins, egg shells and orange peel in quiet comers. This may cause no problems in the lowlands. (I've been reliably told that unscrupulous hunters will use banana skins to lure deer to places where it's easy to shoot them, because deer love banana skins.) But the far lower temperatures at altitude act like a fridge to preserve anything organic for much, much longer: we should take such waste home, too. Next best is placing such left-overs in the nearest bin, but emptying those bins can be costly, the costs more the further from general civilisation the bin is (as by a mountain hut). Such waste, once helicoptered down to the valley, is rarely sorted but goes to landfill, so a lot of material like metal foil from chocolate bars or paper, which would be recycled in the normal course of things, gets missed. We all pay the price.

Finally: the careless dropping of litter is contagious. If an area is somewhat untidy already, only the really strongly motivated will resist the temptation of thinking, 'My left-overs won't make much difference', and add their 'contributions'. It is in our power to stop the beginnings of that nasty chain.

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