Hyperborea: Azimuth has come and gone, its travelers returned to their homes to await another year.
The Burning Man principles are a big part of what make Hyperborea feel like home, and today we’re going to be talking about one in particular: Leave No Trace, the removal and reduction of all MOOP (Matter Out of Place). Anything that isn’t grass or dirt shouldn’t be left behind when we leave.
Overall, there was very little MOOP this year, so we would like to give a big thank you to all the incredible Hyperboreans that cleaned up after themselves throughout the event. We are proud to see the lands left in near pristine shape! We also want to give a very special thank you to the Leave No Trace crew that stayed to the bitter end picking up the last bits of MOOP.
The Haya is an actively used hay field, so particularly troubling items that can be left behind are things that could interfere with farm equipment (firewood, tent pegs, railroad spikes), or would be gross for the farmer to deal with. We also found a number of biodegradeable items, that may seem ok to leave (food waste, egg shells, sawdust) but they are still MOOP that needed to be tidied up.
If you have any particularly stubborn MOOP (such as Excalibur-like railway spikes), let other camps know you need help; you might be surprised at the help you get! If you ask real nice, DPW might even be able to help you out too…
We use the MOOP map to keep track of how well we did as a community, and to help guide our placement requests for next year (hint: camps with good MOOP get favourable placement next year).
With that said, we’d like to present the 2018 Hyperborean MOOP Map
Red Markers: Areas where the LNT team had to do additional work to collect MOOP return the land to pre-event conditions. MOOP can include almost anything: Cigarette butts, tinsel, wood, etc.