Camping Is Getting More Sustainable in 2024: Here’s How

Camping Is Getting More Sustainable in 2024: Here’s How.
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Camping Is Getting More Sustainable in 2024: Here’s How. Image Unsplash.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Camping Is Getting More Sustainable in 2024: Here’s How

Protecting the Earth often coincides with a love for spending time in nature. It’s challenging not to love hiking, canoeing or stargazing when you feel fired up to support the environment. 

The next time you go camping, you might see these eco-friendly changes around tents and official campsites. It’s getting more sustainable as people merge their favorite vacation spots with their passion for the planet.

1. Compost Sites Reduce Waste

Even campers with the best intentions generate waste while spending time outdoors. People create over 70 million tons of trash annually in national parks’ campsites alone. Compost sites where you pitch tents and park campers reduce that garbage.

People can bring biodegradable plates, silverware, napkins, and other necessities instead of traditional alternatives. Throwing their waste into appropriate compost receptacles allows it to break down naturally and turn into fertilizer for the surrounding environment. 

In the future, you’ll likely see composting options more widely available at campgrounds. They’re an easy alternative to landfills that don’t require campers to change habits like bringing dinnerware on their trips.

2. Fire Pit Rules Eliminate Live Trees

Campfires make spending time outdoors easier and more fun. They’re where you gather with loved ones for freshly roasted meals and stories under the stars. They also require fuel, which some campers acquire by cutting branches off nearby trees.

Some campsites with sustainable goals have stopped allowing the use of live tree branches for fire pits. Instead, they indicate where campers can find fallen branches and leaves for natural fire-starting kits. 

They don’t harm the living environment or involve kits relying on chemical-based products to start a roaring fire. In the future, they may include wood from areas where trees naturally fell during significant storms.

3. Low-Flow Systems Reduce Water Usage

Bigger campsites catering to traditional campers and glampers often have places where people can use water systems. Public bathrooms with showers and sinks make camping easier, but they also require plumbing that utilizes water like any city-based dwelling.

Low-flow showerheads and sink nozzles make this less of an issue. Even if someone takes a long shower, the system minimizes waste. Nature enthusiasts can expect to see these systems at more campsites as camping gets more sustainable. Visitors can enjoy their modern amenities without drawing more of the limited natural resources from the surrounding area.

4. Solar Panels Support Electrical Systems

Some campsites have street lamps, bathrooms and rental shops. Those amenities need electricity, which comes from solar panels on sites with sustainable goals. They generate their own electricity to provide the same amount of power. Campers won’t need energy drawn from carbon-emitting power plants to use amenities.

Green energy technologies are becoming more affordable, so campers may see solar panels popping up at more locations. Other sites could prefer out-of-sight options, like hooking up to an electric grid generated by nearby hydropower plants.

5. Campers Educate Each Other Online

People are more connected online than ever before, thanks to social media. Hashtags help users find other people with similar interests. The sustainable camping community uses them on informative posts and videos so everyone can learn from each other.

The shared learning removes guesswork from green camping practices. People can learn eco-friendly tips between trips so each vacation in nature becomes more sustainable than the last. Popular trends may even turn into educational signs at campgrounds if the venue management team tracks camping hashtag activities on various platforms.

6. Sustainable Water Bottles Avoid Chemical Ingredients

You’ll need to stay hydrated while getting vitamin D from sunshine during hikes or swimming in a lake. While buying budget-friendly plastic water bottles at a grocery store may be tempting, they use natural resources during manufacturing. They also waste away in landfills if people don’t recycle them.

Reusable water bottles are a popular trend for campers hoping to become more sustainable. You can get one made from food-grade stainless steel or borosilicate glass that doesn’t need limited natural resources like sand. Refillable water bottle stations will increase in popularity as more visitors bring single bottles they’ll use and take home.

7. Biodegradable Soaps Are More Widely Available

When a camper showers, washes their hands or cleans their dinner dishes, the soap runoff in the drained water eventually reaches the local environment. The ingredients become pollution if they aren’t biodegradable.

Sustainable campsites stock their bathrooms with organic soaps. Campers can also bring biodegradable cleaning products for their various needs to ensure their vacation doesn’t harm the planet. People could expect to see more of these types of soaps available at campgrounds as sustainable camping becomes more popular, especially for venues with convenience shops.

8. People Are Sticking With Campsites

Adventurous campers might enjoy wandering into the woods, carving a spot in the brush and pitching their tents without anyone else around. Although that might be fun, it destroys the plants supporting local biomes.

Campers interested in sustainability will likely stick with campsites that already exist. It limits the potential environmental damage and isolates unintended pollution in populated areas where people can find and dispose of loose trash.

9. Organic Food Makes Accidental Waste Less Harmful

Consider the scraps left on your dinner plate. Even though they’re edible, they can harm the planet when they accumulate in landfills. Food grown with pesticides eventually releases them into the environment while decomposing.

The same snacks and meals made with organic ingredients contain fewer pesticides because they come from farms committed to eco-friendly practices. Campers will likely see organic food trends in the future as more people consider the environmental impact of their choices at campsites and landfills.

10. Eco-Tents Provide Extra Comfort

Campers don’t think about tents when they picture sustainable ways to vacation in the wild. They aren’t the typical things vacationers leave behind because tents are so large. 

In reality, the tents have an adverse environmental impact before they ever reach a campsite. Companies often manufacture them with polyester fabric containing plastic as a primary ingredient. It makes the tent more waterproof and durable by using limited natural resources to create woven plastic threads.

Campers with sustainable values will look for eco-tents to avoid contributing to natural resource usage. They might feature fabric made with recycled materials to reduce their impact on the planet. They could also use updated structural support to maximize air circulation, reducing the need for extension cords and electricity-reliant fans on hot or muggy days.

Look Forward to More Sustainable Camping

There are always ways to make camping more sustainable, especially as people turn resources into updated trends. Enhance your camping experiences with biodegradable soaps, organic foods and campsites with low-flow systems to support the planet’s well-being while enjoying your vacation.

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