Got to carry a few luxury items. I hate instant "coffee".Such excess no wonder your pack is so heavy.
Even popular places have plenty of patches no-one ever treads in or looks closely at. It's a commonsense thing IMO. @Nigelp says I'm missing the point, but no-one has ever clearly explained to me what the point is.It's all about amounts I imagine. A few scattered in a remote place is probably fine. Loads in a popular place less so.
I wouldnt particularly like seeing a banana skin laying anywhere in nature in northern Europe ... no one wants to see half eaten fruit and other crap lying around. Not nice to see. Either carry out or bury it. Especially in the UK which is a very small and dense country with a lot of people, the mess can quickly add up.
@tarptent I use one of these I got off the 'bay for £3.50.
View attachment 32167
It weighs 9g wet through.
It lives in the food bag, with whatever will stuff into it stuffed into it. So it doesn't really use any pack space.But does it pack flat? The Java Drip does, and that saves space.
Apple cores - drop it on a lump of rock and squish under foot it until it's just a wet pulp and completely unidentifiable. Less mess than the sheep/bird poop lying nearby.
Orange and banana skins - take home.
I may be weird but I always eat Apple cores. They're completely edible. Only bit I don't eat is the stalk
Too many (and I mean an awful lot) apple seeds are not good for you.
https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/are-apple-seeds-poisonous#how-cyanide-works
More palatable than coffee grounds, that's for sure.I may be weird but I always eat Apple cores. They're completely edible. Only bit I don't eat is the stalk
Leave no trace - for me that isn’t on sliding scale of leave no/some/maybe/trace!As Rog says, its a matter of personal choice and it depends where you draw the line and where you hike. In a natural park (most of the places we tend to think are still nice), chucking biodegradable rubbish is not allowed (and coffee grounds are often specifically mentioned). If you make the effort there, why not make it everywhere? And what's the difference between 75 grams of coffee grounds and 75 grams of apple cores that have been cut up in really, really small and tiny bits.
There is no definitive answer. In more upland settings then I would always take all waste except human waste home. In more lowland settings where it is warmer and better conditions for composting I may bag grounds and scatter, or bury them later at a suitable site away from camp or coffee spot, but usually happy to take all waste home and like to leave no trace of where I have camped. When I did winter mountaineering I would sometimes have to ‘poo’ in a bag and then bury later because where we camped was snow and after a thaw the poo would just be laying on the open ground.It's an interesting subject and one that could lead on to so many different avenues.
I have 1-3 ground coffees per camp location so that would be 75g ish of coffee grounds which I would scatter probably over a 5m2 area. Now I am not a scientist but to me, that has far less impact on the immediate and wider environment of an area than for instance; having a fire, moving rocks, river crossings, and pitching shelters that may worry wildlife into moving locations. I think one of the most overlooked things that most of us leave behind is human waste, buried.
Leave no trace - for me that isn’t on sliding scale of leave no/some/maybe/trace!
I would always take all waste except human waste home.
In my opinion, LNT is not some divinely ordained principle people should have on their conscience if they fail to live up to.Leave no trace - for me that isn’t on sliding scale of leave no/some/maybe/trace!
Others can make their own minds up and do as they want or their conscience allows (because they will anyway!).
No I’m not. We are/were talking about leaving or taking coffee grounds etc home. Not human waste - there is no practical or hygienic way to take that home. You probably know that really and I’m not getting drawn into ‘pendants’ debate about what is or is not waste. For me LNT trace includes taking all waste home except human waste. The original post was a question about coffee grounds. Others have expressed there opinion as have I. If some take that as me being contradictory or as divinely ordained then that’s fine, I don’t care. I was just expressing a view on a forum not making up a rule for all to follow.Sorry but you are directly contradicting your self here.
Good for you and you are welcome.In my opinion, LNT is not some divinely ordained principle people should have on their conscience if they fail to live up to.
But thanks for finally defining what "the point" is, for you.
I may be weird but I always eat Apple cores. They're completely edible. Only bit I don't eat is the stalk