I’m Dr. Victoria McGruer, an environmental scientist who will lead the largest-ever trail trash survey by hiking 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada. AMA!

Actually brilliant. Hike a trail but call it a research expedition to get funding. Since you will be living in a tent is this considered work from home?

You are onto our plan, saw straight through it HAHA :)! We will be calling it work from home 100%. Don’t think we will get overtime for the 10+ hours a day of hiking though, haven’t figured that one out. But actually we are really excited about the research aspect, our team has Rubbish a startup focused on trash data collection, The Moore Institute for Plastic Pollution Research, a nonprofit research institute focused on trash research and is growing every day.

will you do it all in one go or take a tent?

I expect to spend at least 150 days on trail! Definitely going to bring a tent

I was joking, well you be doing some kinda photo blog of it, Id certainly follow that, watching your progress and how the land changes.

:)

We will be super active on IG @notracetrails (https://www.instagram.com/notracetrails/)

We're also building out our website at www.notracetrails.com

What are you specifically looking for in the data you collect that will help the greater population keep trails clean?

Big questions are where is most of the trash (this will help us prioritize future cleanups and mitigation), what types of trash is there (will help us figure out how to better educate people and identify alternatives to the products), how much trash (help us identify the scope of the problem and assess costs to the environment).

What is the best case outcome for this project and when is Netflix making your documentary?

It would be awesome if we can get lots of other hikers logging and tracking trash with us. We want to use this data to build an anti-trash movement and get people trash talking!

My partner and I are planning to thruhike the PCT next year too and we’d love to help!

So awesome!! We will have a sharable link through the app we are using for the survey (https://www.rubbish.love/) that other hikers can use to link to the project. DM me and we can keep in touch as we plan this out.

Are you going to include sounds from portable speakers in your trail trash survey?

We're going to stick with things we can photograph, but interesting idea 🧐

Have you looked into the literature on art-walking (and walking art), and tracktivism because your project seems to overlap quite a bit.

I haven't, I'll read into that - Thanks!

How much toilet paper do you pack for a 2650 mile hike?!

How much toilet paper do you pack for a 2650 mile hike?!

None if you use the backcountry bidet: https://andrewskurka.com/pooping-in-the-outdoors-part-4-the-backcountry-bidet/

Will you be cleaning the trash up as you find it?

I’ll carry out as much as I can! Here is team that carried out a lot: https://gearjunkie.com/proj/packing-it-out/packing-it-out-completes-pct-recaps-journey

Have you ever come across hazardous materials, such as explosives or radioactive material?

While hiking not as much, but some items can be a biohazard

What's the most common trash you find on trails?

Cigarettes by far… Also lots of other unique things you don’t find very commonly in other places like lots of band aids and pieces of tents, hiking poles, shoes, corners of foodpackaging

Will "hiker boxes" and unstaffed "trail magic" caches count toward trash?

That is a really good question. I haven't thru-hiked before so I don't know where hiker boxes and trail magic usually pop up. I have seen posts recently discouraging unattended trail magic. We will have to think about this more and include it in our survey methods.

This is a big issue in wilderness areas with bear boxes and I personally know all the rangers are frustrated by it. I am a long time employee of wilderness in sequoia kings canyon and Yosemite. I like your project and feel free to dm me If you want to talk wilderness trash and what employees have seen as issues!

I remember seeing a "trash tally" rangers were keeping in Sequoia. DM'd you - would love to hear your thoughts!

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I have been saving up for several years to take the time off of work but we are looking for funding to support the research (TBD)

We'll find a way to do it with or without

Are you going to just be using a tent, or do you plan on packing something like a small hammock as well?

A hammock would be really nice. I grew up in New England and there is always a place (trees) to pitch one. I think on this trip I will stick with a tent, it can be hard to find a hammock spot in the desert ;)

Have you thought about what gear you will be bringing with you?

Have you thought about what gear you will be bringing with you?

Yeah! My goal will be to keep things as light as possible I have a light gossamer gear pack but still looking for tent/sleeping - open to suggestions!

I'm planning a 2023 CDT thru hike, is there any way I can get involved with this project?

SO AWESOME! We will have a sharable link through the app we are using for the survey (https://www.rubbish.love/) that other hikers can use to link to the project. DM me and we can keep in touch as we plan this out.

Do you prefer smooth or crunchy peanut butter?

crunch 4ever

Tell us about the logistics! Will you all be camping? Hotels? Will you be leaning on trail angels? What will you do with the trash? If you clean as you go, how does that figure into your total time and what will you do if you come upon a massive dump?

Great questions! Still figuring out some of the logistics but the plan is to camp most of the time with a night or two staying at a hotel every week or two when the trail passes near a town. Right now we are planning on having predetermined 1km survey sites spread throughout the trail. In that 1 km I will survey and try to clean all litter that I come across. We will do some practice surveys this summer to hone in our strategy, but we expect some surveys to go quickly and others may take long time.

I’d encourage you to check in at wilderness ranger stations or chat when you encounter rangers on trail. They do a ton of trash collecting and it might be nice to note areas they have recently cleaned that would affect what you find in your surveys. They likely will be pretty excited about your project as well.

Great idea! I would love to hear more about what their trash reconnaissance looks like too

I'm curious to know as someone who has thru-hiked -- What qualifies as "litter data"? What do you guys keep track of? Density per mile? Quality of material?

We will be using the Rubbish trash tracking app to collect our data which will allow us to take geotaged photos of the litter we find. With that information we will be able to make conclusions about the most common types of litter and where it is located- and could answer questions like density per mile. Having thru hiked was there any trash/litter that stood out to you?

Having thru hiked was there any trash/litter that stood out to you?

I think there was a bit of "oops I dropped that" trash where it was snack wrappers that was common. Otherwise, cigarette butts when we were closer to trailheads and towns.

The most obvious sort of trash was toilet paper (I always called them 'shit tickets') that wasn't properly buried or packed out according to leave no trace principles. I was 2015 so I'm sure that is only worse nowadays.

You might be surprised. Was pretty clean last year. The further from day-hikers, the cleaner.

For sure, we have definitely found that distance from trailheads matters! We did a 70 mile survey in the sierra in 2018. But right now we mostly have qualitative data, with this survey we want to get a full scope of whats out there - where are the hotspots, what predicts trash. This will help us prioritize future cleanups and mitigation.

Also check out this team: https://gearjunkie.com/proj/packing-it-out/packing-it-out-completes-pct-recaps-journey

Agreed on the “oops i dropped that trash” We will definitely be keeping track of the shit tickets, haha maybe we should make that the official label.

Awesome initiative and I hope it produces some great data.

Question: Have you done or are you aware of any studies on the effectiveness of LNT education on trail trash? I sometimes worry that the only people who pay attention to LNT postings at trailheads or LNT education online are the people who would have packed their trash out anyway. Is there hope that the people who are leaving this trash just don't realize the impact or is it likely they know and don't care? I think every hiker has their own opinion on which is more likely, so it'd be nice to see some actual data on it!

Good question. Not aware of the studies which assess how effective LNT is, but this study certainly could be used to assess that to some extent if we had data on where LNT education programs are very active. We have hope that society can improve the problem and think that collecting data on the problem is going to be the main way to advance that! Totally agree with you it will be nice to have some data to back up what we are thinking is going on. Honestly, I think a lot of the trash on trails is accidental, small corners of packaging, little scraps of food and stuff like that. From what I have seen in the backcountry, you rarely find a big pile of trash people dumped behind, but sometimes you do find that, especially in the bear boxes, people tend to treat them like a trash can.

Are you concerned about safety and what measures will you take to ensure it?

Bear mace. Works great against bears and bros.

On my bingo card for questions people ask female thru hikers, this is the free space

Ha! Love it

Is this just a way to have your university pay for yiur hiking trip?

Right now this is self-funded and I have saved up for a few years to take time off of work

How much food do you plan on packing?

I'll pack food for short stretches of trail (eg 1 week) and then resupply in towns near the trail

Do you start at the Mexican border or in Mexico itself?

I'll start in Campo, California (Mexico border)!

Can I come? I'm an Eagle Scout!

Not really, due to family and work, but I wish...

Trail party!

This is so cool!! I lived in the Eastern Sierra for a year and was surprised at how much trash I would find even in the wilderness. In your experience, what type of trash did you find the highest proportion of (e.g., human waste related, food or beverage containers/wrappers, hiking/sports equipment related)?

Thanks for doing this super cool survey! So stoked for your journey and to see the results.

We did a survey in 2018 on the high sierra trail. The grossest things we found was wagbags/ TP. But pieces of equipment or packaging are common

So glad I saw this AMA! As a PRT major working for a municipal govt, I have noticed that many organizations are clueless when it comes to understanding, and by extension managing, our shared outdoor resources. A couple related questions:

What are some of the ways in which you quantify your trash survey data, and how do you ensure consistency of your methods?

Do you collect qualitative trail user data as part of this survey, and if so, what is your strategy to make sure you are hearing a wide variety of voices?

Finally, how do you "make a living" doing this work? Are you contracted, do you sell your data to public entities, are you making your own way as a non-profit? Sorry if some of those options are reductive, I'm just personally interested!

Thanks for doing this!

Thank you for the support! We will randomly select 100-200 sites along the PCT using GIS and survey them for 1 km each time. We will also do some follow ups of the same site to ensure we aren’t missing things and ensure reproducibility.

We don’t currently have a strategy for capturing qualitative data besides just our daily journal and reflections. To do a real survey of peoples perspectives would take IRB approval and we would want to collab with a social scientist.

Right now I have built up savings that I am planning on using in case other funding streams fall through. I have also applied for research funding through grants such as National Geographic Explorers.

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…post morning coffee. It's currently 10 am.

Congrats on planning such a cool trip! I'm excited to follow along with your travels and see what fun trash you discover :) :)

Is there a way for the avid day hiker to contribute trash data to a survey like this?

Have fun & best of luck!!

Thanks! We will have a project-specific link through the app we are using for the survey (https://www.rubbish.love/) that anyone Can use to survey for the project. DM me and we can keep in touch as we plan this out. In the meantime you can also use apps like this to do your own surveys

This sounds like both an amazing adventure and an excellent survey! I'm curious to see the results.

Your post mentions a team will be with you partaking in the research and surveying however there's no mention of actual clean up. Are you planning on arranging teams to work on actual trash collection too?

We are definitely going to cleanup everything that we can. We will probably not be able to clean up very large items we find (e.g. a whole tent left behind) but anything we can fit in our bags we will pick up. We will be encouraging others we meet to cleanup the trail and cleanup after themselves too.

This team in 2016 did a lot of clean up on the PCT https://gearjunkie.com/proj/packing-it-out/packing-it-out-completes-pct-recaps-journey

What is the longest hike you've done before? Anything like the PCT?

This is definitely the longest thing I have ever done! I"ve generally only been able to do trips I could do while working (~week long)

Have you heard about trail names??

As is tradition on trail, every thru hiker gets a nick name. As a named thru hiker I bestow upon you the name, Trash Panda.

You can keep it if you like or not. Trail names are consensual.

My name is Reverned (Class of 2019) and my wife's is waterfall, who is on trail right now.

WOW! Thank you! Figured my trail name would inevitably be trash-related...

Love Trash Panda :)

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We will be posting on @notracetrails for most social media accounts (IG will be big: https://www.instagram.com/notracetrails, just getting started). Also will have a blog up on http://notracetrails.com/

Classic McGruer! Anyways no big question here except how is your day?

Classic McGruer! Anyways no big question here except how is your day?

Bluecane! Living the life over here

That is such an amazing & long journey, which portion of the trail are you most excited about?

That is such an amazing & long journey, which portion of the trail are you most excited about?

I LOVE spending time in the high sierra, but I honestly haven’t done much hiking in Washington and Oregon so very excited to spend time out there (esp. The cascades)

How did they know it was human feces in the bag?

And please don't tell me some field scientist found a bag of shit and surmised there may be value in knowing what sort of asshole it was pushed out of.

We all know it was a human that bagged the shit regardless of where the shit came from, which is the important thing anyways. Why yest the bag of shit to determine species of origin?

Or was the shit somhow obviously from a human? Like some hiker dude regularly shits in bags and signs 'Rick's shit' on the bag before dropping it on the ground?

Our best guess -these are handed out at the trailhead =https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/inyo/recreation/hiking/?cid=stelprd3820395

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I will be starting the hike alone, but quite a few people hike the PCT northbouth with ~ 50 hikers starting each day so I expect to be around fellow hikers especially at the beginning of the hike. I will not carry any weapons with me, I’m not sure about the laws around this in different protected areas, but I don’t anticipate needing a firearm for any reason. I will hike 10-20 miles each day. I willl have gear that is rated for colder nights and anticipate snow so will try to be as prepared as possible. I also have snow travell experience.

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The homelessness crisis is a serious issue. Cities like LA are spending billions to try to help the homeless get back on their feet which gives me hope. I don’t anticipate that we will interact with many homeless people on the pacific crest trail but we will definitely keep it in mind for our study if we do.

Seriously? Why not a hike through India or Africa.. "Scientist" try activist. The US has done more in cleanup than the next 10 countries. Until you start bringing your little "shame" parties to China, India, Russia and Africa I don't want to hear it.

Definitely not trying to shame anyone here. We think that the United States still has a trash problem that we can address using better data. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/26132/reckoning-with-the-us-role-in-global-ocean-plastic-waste