Clean Up

Who does what?
Earth Guardians go up to the playa throughout the year to check past year's BM sites, our most important effort happen each spring before BLM does our annual inspection. Earthguardians also encourage BRCity residents and provide volunteers to do clean-up during the event. However DPW, who coordinates the main clean-up effort, is the expert in clean-up techniques. These techniques have changed each year as we learn more about minimizing impact and have had to deal with changing weather conditions.

Clean-up : First Step, remove the big stuff
The first effort is to remove all the big structures. DPW uses volunteers to take down and remove all of the big BM structures (e.g. the cafe, the commissary, shade structures for rangers, playa info services, media mecca, the medical center, lamplighters, greeters, earthguardians, the gate, the outposts, etc). Most of the Next, the city infrastructure (all the street signs, lamp posts, burn barrels and burn platforms) must be taken down and removed from the playa. Next any large debris from Theme camps and art installations are removed. Any campers, who haven't yet left the playa, are also removed.

Second Step: Move operations off playa
Once most of the city is down, DPW removes it's operations off the playa. The DPW structures and equipment are removed from the playa out to 80 acres. From here on out, crews will be coming from the '80' each day to remove all remaining items from the playa. All smaller items, left by irresponsible campers and artists are removed.

Third Step: Gridding
At this point, most items visible from afar are gone. To see what's left, you have do bend over and look down at the playa. It all must go. To do this efficiently, the city is broken into grids. At the side of each grid, a line of volunteers will set up and slowly walk across the grid, bags in hand, and collect every last twist tie, nail, bottle cap, piece of string and tent stake.

Spring Cleaning

In the spring of each year, Earth Guardians go out and check out how the playa has survived the winter rains. Any small items that were missed or buried by dust and any burn scars can resurface in spring. We must clean up all traces of the BM event before the BLM spring inspection. To find these items, GPS coordinates for large camps, major city installations, and common meeting areas are examined. Any areas around new burn scars will also be scoured for left items.

HOW TO CLEAN A BURN SCAR

In order to clean a burn scar you must first bag and haul all superficial debris. Then you brake up the surface of the playa a quarter to half an inch deep. This is most easily done by dragging a screen behind a pick up truck. Rakes also work well. Next you pick up all glass and metal debris and pick out the scarred playa. Lastly the playa is smoothed over and returned to an even normal level. Sometimes this must be done two or three times in the coarse of a few years to have the scar completely disappear.

Do not dig the playa up or shovel down deep. It is critical to break the surface, clean out foreign material and lay the playa back were it was picked up.

SUPPLIES TO BRING

Magnets cost about $40.00 at Northern Tool and Equipment. They can be purchased at www.NorthernTool.com. This is useful while planning for next year.
For now, please bring:

shovels
magnets
leaf rakes
dirt rakes
winter sleeping bags
binoculars
garbage bags
rain gear
food to share
gloves
goggles

Picture below from previous LNT Back Packing Trip