Camping Green: How To Enjoy the Outdoors Environmentally-friendly

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Camping is thought to be one of the most environmentally friendly activities that one can do, however if you’re going out camping in a half-million dollar motor home and leaving behind a large ecological footprint with trash and other goods, then no longer are you doing the environment any good. It’s easy to harm the environment and that’s relatively known to everyone, however camping can be one of the best things you can do for the environment, even if you’re only camping for a few days. You can do this by camping green – that is camping with ecologically friendly equipment and gear.

Now, when most people think green camping, they immediately think solar power. Solar powered equipment is great for the environment and is easy to use in the summer or in locations where rain and overcast days are few. There are many other green camping products that you can use in a variety of locations that can still reduce your ecological impact and keep you dry, safe and happy while you are camping.

For lighting, consider LED lights. LED lights use much less battery power than regular bulbs and are actually much brighter lights.  In fact quality LED flashlight can provide over 600 hours of light from one set of batteries.  These flashlights also last longer, requiring drastically fewer replacement bulbs.  LED lanterns use the same bulb technology and are therefore a good idea for having around the campsite.  The combination of battery savings and bulb efficiency results in up to 90% less energy consumption than any other flashlight.

There are also LED flashlights that don’t use battery power at all.  Wind-up LED flashlights are an even more green choice for your camping gear. These are fairly easy to use – all you have to do is wind them up (friction creates power) and click on. The only potential downside to wind up LED flashlights is that if you’re caving, hiking or climbing, you may run out of light and not have free hands to wind up your light. These lights don’t put out as strong of a light as a regular LED but they are an excellent option for short hiking excursions.

Throughout your camping trip, you should look for ways to reduce your impact on the environment.  Leave the Styrofoam cups at home as well as the disposable plates and cutlery. Instead, pack reusable dishes and cutlery to drastically decrease the amount of trash you need to burn, causing bad gases to enter the air or throw away, overfilling our landfills with slow biodegrading trash.

In many ways, you can camp green in much the same ways that you institute green living at home. Composting your trash, even if its just in a bin until you get home, is much better than creating plastic bags full of otherwise ecologically sound trash. Also refrain from leaving anything behind in your campsite – take all your garbage with you and make sure you have a recycle bin while you’re camping to recycle when you get back home.

Don’t overlook how fun camping with a tent can be. A tent and sleeping bag is much more environmentally friendly than a motor home or even a trailer. While today’s society seems to be bent on ‘bigger and better’, you can enjoy your trip outdoors more if you get back to nature and live while you’re camping electricity free. Leave the gadgets (cell phone, PDAs, games, computers, televisions, etc) at home and turned off. Even if you are only camping like this for one weekend, the reduced impact on the environment is enormous. If everyone could camp like this even once a year for a weekend, our environment would begin to heal.

While you’re camping, there are various things that are considered must-have camping items; a heat source for cooking, for example. Unless you’re allergic to smoke or have strong asthma symptoms, the campfire is still the most ecologically friendly way to go. Fueled grills and electric grills use resources that campfires don’t need – all you need for a campfire is wood and a lighting source.

We all have been tasked with helping in the process of reducing our impact on the environment. It has become increasingly more important that we do what we can in any small or large way to help the earth maintain a sustainable environment for future generations. By using energy efficient lighting products, carrying biodegradable or recyclable equipment and reducing our pollution into the air, campers can drastically reduce their impact on the environment and still have everything you need to enjoy your camping trip.

~Ben Anton, 2008
http://www.lightsandknives.com/green_camping.htm