San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Tahoe’s sledding hills have big trash problem
Beyond the pull of Tahoe’s ski resorts, the region’s “snow play” areas and sledding hills attract tens of thousands of people this time of year. But visitors are leaving behind more than tracks in the snow: They’re abandoning large numbers of broken plastic sleds.
These aren’t classic wooden toboggans or metal saucers. They are distinctly flimsy candycolored polyethylene that sell for about $5 to $15 at grocery stores and outdoorsy shops around the basin — convenient and affordable enough to function as single-use disposables.
When ridden down a cold slope they can become brittle and easily crack and shatter.
“You’d be shocked to know how those cheap
sleds break apart,” said OngKar Khalsa, a resident of the Glenbrook area on Tahoe’s east side. “They just explode with these tiny pieces of plastic everywhere. Once that happens, people just leave them all over the place.”
Khalsa lives near Spooner Summit, one of Tahoe’s most popular sledding spots. Several years ago, she drew attention to a mounting trash problem there — people were leaving food containers, dirty diapers and
human waste in the parking area — and conducted volunteer cleanups that continue to this day. Her efforts helped persuade the League to Save Lake Tahoe and the Nevada Department of Transportation to install a dumpster and portable toilets at the site, which has helped with the litter, she says.
Still, abandoned sleds are literally piling up on some of Tahoe’s hillsides.
It’s become so bad that the U.S. Forest Service and California Department of Parks and Recreation have launched public awareness campaigns to try to clean up the issue at the dozen Sno-Parks — designated pay-for-play areas popular among visiting families — that the agencies co-manage between Truckee and Yosemite National Park.
“This issue ranks very highly with us,” said Lisa Herron, public affairs specialist at the U.S. Forest Service’s Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, which covers most of the basin. “You hit a hard icy bump and, poof, there goes the sled into a bunch of pieces. That’s super common.”
“This is not a problem that’s unique to the basin,” she added. “It’s happening in forests all over California that have snow and sledding areas.”
The Forest Service and the nonprofit League to Save Lake Tahoe have installed “sled corrals” at certain hotspots — makeshift pens staked in the snow where people can leave sleds they don’t want to bring home. Take a sled, leave a sled, is the idea. But the corrals quickly became repositories for busted sleds and trash.
Khalsa remembers sorting through a corral and finding not a single usable sled among dozens in the pile.
“People don’t seem to realize the impact they’re having with these sleds, and when hundreds of people do it, it compounds the issue,” Khalsa said.
The broken sled phenomenon is familiar to residents who participate in cleanups around Tahoe. The colorful crafts break apart into bits that flow downhill, winding up on sand beaches and concentrating as microplastics in the lake. A few years ago, during an underwater cleanup of Tahoe’s shoreline, scuba divers extracted the remains of an old plastic sled, cracked but clearly identifiable.
No one can control what visitors bring with them into the basin, but agencies and nonprofits are trying to spread the word: “The proper ‘slediquette’ is to choose a more sustainable sled that will last longer — a metal sled, a wooden sled or an inflatable tube,” said Marilee Movius, senior community engagement manager for League to Save Lake Tahoe.
Movius said the league plans to reach out to local businesses and ask them to cut the plastic price tag fasteners off of apparel after a sale, and also to gently nudge them toward selling sleds made of durable materials.