Eco Friendly Living
Camping and Hiking Green Tips
Eco friendly living means going out and exploring. Summer is the perfect time to go camping with your family to experience the nature world. Here are some guidelines that will help you choose and set up a campsite in a safe way that respects the environment.
1. If you are camping for several days, move your site daily. This prevents excessive trampling of the vegetation and overall "wear and tear" on the site. The same would hold true if you find a site that was recently used by others. Don't use it; choose a less-used area. Moving the site daily also allows wildlife a chance to return to the area if your presence is frightening them away.
2. Don't build furniture or other large structures. It may be fun to think of building huts or making furniture out of wood, but that is one more obstruction on the landscape. Think temporary - you won't be there that long, but after you leave, those bulky items will take a very long time to decompose.
3. Camp at least 200 feet from a water source. Don't bathe or wash dishes in creeks, lakes or streams. Use buckets or jugs of water that you haul from the water source to your camp.
4. Bring reusable flatware and cookware. Wash up using biodegradable soap. There are even natural soaps  especially made for campers.
5. When you are finished with your dish or bath water, pour it out slowly over as large an area as possible. This helps avoid mud holes and mini floods. It may not seem like much to you, but a colony of ants or ground-nesting birds could find the rush of water from an overturned bucket quite destructive!
6. Don't be afraid to report unsafe or destructive activities of others. If you observe hikers or campers throwing trash around or conducting themselves in a way that poses a threat to the environment (or to you), report them to the local authorities.
7. Seal all food in airtight containers  and do not keep it in your tent. Hang sealed containers in bags, high up in a tree away from your tent. This will help keep animals away from the food.
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