New state effort fights park litter

Three used diapers, nine socks, 11 broken glass bottles, 72 pieces of used toilet paper and 81 cigarette butts: Those are just a handful of the trashed items found near a popular swimming spot at Oak Creek in Sedona after Memorial Day weekend.

Since May, Jason Danoff, the owner of Trail Lovers Excursions in Red Rock Country, said trail-cleaning volunteers have picked up more than five tons of trash with his cleanup group Stewards of Sedona.

To try and remedy the dire degradation of Arizona’s outdoor resources, the Arizona Office of Tourism and the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics, an outdoor education nonprofit, have begun a new partnership so that visitors to the state’s parks, trails and forests can learn how to enjoy the outdoors sustainably.

The amount of trash is ‘exponentially higher’ this year

Debbie Johnson, the director of the Arizona Office of Tourism, said the office planned to launch a partnership with Leave No Trace sometime in the next year, but moved up the time frame considerably.

“What we were seeing with the pandemic was so many people getting outside, getting exercise, enjoying the outdoors, and we were seeing more people who don’t know how to take care of our environment,” Johnson said. The partnership provides Leave No Trace messaging specific to Arizona that will be used in educational and training opportunities.

Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, outdoor spaces around the state have been covered in trash as people go outside in record numbers for fresh air and socially distant activities. In May, Arizona State Parks were busier than ever, with visitation up 11% compared to the same time last year.

But more visitors means more trash that pollutes the environment.

Danoff said the amount of trash they have picked up since March is “exponentially higher” compared to the amount of trash they picked in previous years.

The trail guides with his company usually spend the off-season cleaning up the region’s most popular destinations, but this year, with the pandemic keeping the business shutdown through June, they decided to spend more time on litter removal.

Their social media posts about the sheer volume of trash they found in Sedona’s waterways got hundreds of thousands of views and helped bring in concerned volunteers. Now, the Stewards of Sedona send out clean-up crews every Tuesday morning to clean up areas like Wet Beaver Creek and Oak Creek Canyon.

How you can help Leave No Trace

Danoff said he thinks people who are new to outdoor recreation assume someone might be coming to clean up after them. But with skeleton crews of volunteers working through the pandemic at nonprofits and the U.S. Forest Service, maintenance capacity is already taxed.

Research from Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics shows that nine out of 10 people who engage in outdoor recreation are not educated about best practices for ethically interacting with the environment.

Before you go outdoors, the group recommends visitors and residents get educated on how to implement the seven principles of Leave No Trace to reduce harm to the environment.

The seven principles of Leave No Trace are: i Plan ahead and prepare. i Travel and camp on durable surfaces. i Trash your trash. i Leave what you find. i Be careful with fire. i Respect wildlife. i Share the trail.

Abiding by these principles has farreaching impacts not just for litter, but for the health of wildlife and cleanliness of waterways.

Danoff said that trash like diapers and animal excrement contribute to E. coli contamination in Sedona’s swimming holes, which occasionally need to be closed to visitors when the bacteria levels get too high.

Johnson also said the Arizona Leave No Trace partnership will specifically focus on how to prevent wildfires, a major concern in the state.

“We’re going to take this messaging and share it with all of our partners,” Johnson said, adding that the Office of Tourism will work with local communities and state parks to get Leave No Trace messaging out far and wide.

To learn more about Leave No Trace, visit: tourism.az.gov/leavenotrace.