Thru Hiking and Sustainability

Sustainability is the ability to maintain existence. With the exacerbation of climate change due to human activity, a lot of people have concerned themselves with how their behaviors are impacting the planet. Despite the fact that one third of global greenhouse emissions released since 1965 (the year in which companies and governments were aware of the impact of carbon emissions on the environment) have been produced by just 20 fossil fuel companies, a lot of individuals - myself included - have taken it upon themselves to minimize their personal impact in whatever ways possible. If you want to read about my sustainability journey and how it has changed over the years, you can do so at the bottom of this post.

There are many reasons for one to attempt a thru hike, but a common motivation for participants is to develop a deeper connection with and appreciation for nature. A thru hike of the Appalachian Trail, for example, takes 4-6 months to complete, which is a lot of time to spend outside, generally away from food supplies and indoor plumbing and civilization (as I know it) as a whole. These few months on the trail are going to be drastically different from my norm - for better or worse. One downside that I've come to realize in my planning is how challenging it's going to be to maintain a level of sustainability that I strive to achieve in my day-to-day routines.

At home, I put a lot of time and planning into minimizing the garbage that I produce, particularly surrounding food. I achieve this goal by cooking almost entirely plant-based, by buying fresh and unpackaged produce, and by using repurposed jars for bulk bin items (such as rice and dried beans). However, a typical backpacking meal looks like instant oatmeal or grocery store tortillas with shredded cheese - all of which comes in some kind of disposable packaging. When I first began thinking through the logistics of this hike, I had planned to attempt a minimal-waste hike. I've found resources for, and completed my share of, zero- or minimal-waste backpacking trips, all of which can feasibly last 2 or 3 days, but nothing for anything as lengthy as a thru hike. I was going to bring reusable cloth bags and attempt to get all my food from bulk sections. I quickly realized that a lot of the towns that surround the AT likely won't have a lot of bulk section options, and I'm not about to starve myself on the trail in the name of minimizing my garbage production. After all, I allow myself to eat fast food and bags of chips when I do road trips and sit in the car for days, so why wasn't I going to allow myself that same grace for a hike that will span many months?

I've decided that I'm still going to be as intentional as possible without being unreasonable or unhealthy. I'm still going to try to minimize my packaging by getting fresh produce and possibly bulk bin items where I can, and I'm still going to try to minimize my meat intake, but it's important to me that I maintain a healthy diet while I spend so much of my day hiking. For me, this means I'm not going to bring any kind of cooking system; while I do already have a hand-me-down backpacking stove that my parents' neighbor generously gifted me, I don't like the idea of having to buy a non-refillable fuel canisters, only to throw it away and buy a new one when it runs out, and repeat this cycle for several months. (For anyone who's about to suggest cold-soaking oatmeal and quinoa, I tried doing this for a few overnight backpacking trips and thought I'd rather starve than eat cold, flavorless mush, so... no.) I'm still going to try to get my protein from non-meat sources (hello, peanut butter, my new bff). And I'm still going to try to minimize my garbage production where I can.

I also am going to be intentional with the gear I bring. Backpacking is already pretty minimalistic, since you have to carry everything with you all the time, but there's a current trend in backpacking called "ultralight" that I think takes minimalism to a potentially wasteful extreme. You may have heard this quote by William Lowndes, Secretary of the Treasury of Great Britain between 1695 and 1724: "Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves." Replace the word "pence" with "ounces," and you've got ultralight backpacking nailed down. Ultralight backpacking means the backpacker carries only what they need (up to each hiker's discretion) and as little weight of it as possible, with the understanding that each ounce shed per item contributes to an overall lighter hike. For example, most ultralight backpackers have strayed away from hiking boots in favor of trail runners, which are running shoes designed for traction and durability on rooty and rocky trails, since they are less bulky and weighty. I, personally, love my hiking boots, but more to the point, I already have my hiking boots, so I'm not going to not use them. (That's not to say that I don't have any gear that fits the "ultralight" description. My sleeping bag and sleeping pad, for instance, are definitely on the lighter side for each of those items. However, I did not go out of my way to buy exclusively "ultralight" items, and I am using a decent amount of secondhand or well-loved items that are heavier and bulkier than newer versions. You can see my full gear list here.)

Ultralight, to me, looks like 10 travel-sized toothpaste tubes instead of 2-3 regular-sized ones. It looks like buying different gear despite having perfectly usable, albeit bulkier and heavier, options. It looks like spending extra money for lighter-weight options when non-ultralight versions of the same gear, especially ones I already have, are perfectly usable. Ultralight can be good if you are starting your backpacking journey with no gear, nobody to borrow/buy gear from, and a pretty hefty budget, but I don't think it suits my needs or hiking style.

Additionally, I think my initial desire to do a minimal-waste thru hike was a reversion of my sustainability journey to the beginning, where it was focused solely on garbage generation and not other forms of waste or the removal of barriers that prevent some communities from participating in popular forms of sustainability practices. For example, in my day-to-day life, I drive my car almost every day for work. I use electricity and air conditioning. But on this hike, I usually won't have access to those luxuries, so with decreased energy usage and increased trash production, I feel like I'll end up at a net neutral for emissions.

Lastly, I think it's important to acknowledge that living a perfectly emissions-free life is pretty impossible for most people, especially in wealthier countries like the United States, since most of us don't know how to actively create meaningful give-and-take relationships with the land and our lifestyles depend on energy-consuming technologies. Every now and again, I definitely freak out about how my actions are adding to the ever-impending crisis we face, but I have come to this conclusion: the act of living requires a degree of emission release. In my lifetime, I'm going to do what I can to minimize those emissions, but I'm still going to live. I'm going to generate more garbage than I am comfortable doing at home, but I'm still going to backpack.

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A Brief Synopsis of my Sustainability Journey

Like any good journey, my sustainability journey began with a random episode of a TV show that I watched at the beginning of college. The episode of How I Met Your Mother titled "Garbage Island" references the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is a stretch of trash - mainly plastics (more specifically, microplastics) - that floats on 1.6 million square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean. When the episode aired in 2011, Marshall tells his friends that it was twice the size of Texas; in 2020, it was twice the size of the continental US. I had never heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch before, but it freaked me out knowing that it existed. I decided to take immediate action in the best way I knew how - cutting back on my garbage generation. It was hard in the dorms, but as soon as I lived off campus, I was able to focus my buying habits on minimizing my garbage. I became ~that guy~ that refused to use straws in order to "sAvE tHe TuRtLeS!" and not-so-secretly judged you for not doing the same. I stopped buying meat, not because the meat industry produces a substantial amount of greenhouse emissions (which is why I have drastically cut back on my meat consumption now), but because it comes packaged at the grocery store in styrofoam and plastic wrap. I started buying mostly fresh produce using my reusable produce bags and bulk bin grains using repurposed jars. I became obsessed with cutting back on my garbage production, and that was my version of environmentalism.

Gradually, I became more aware of structural and systemic barriers that make it difficult for some people to cut back on their garbage (specifically plastic) consumption. Columbus has several grocery stores with bulk bin sections and fresh produce that doesn't come wrapped in plastics (s/o to Lucky's Market and Bexley Natural Market). More than that, the pocket I live in actually sells fresh produce; you can't really blame people who live in food deserts for getting most of their calories from fast food restaurants or gas stations, all of which generates a lot of garbage. Was I a better steward of the environment because my neighborhood has better accessibility to foods that are healthier for me and for the planet, because I could limit my month-long trash production to the size of a mason jar, and because I got a $7 reusable straw from Amazon?

Obviously, the answer is no. Then, in a class, we discussed individual vs. corporate behaviors in relation to environmental impact. How much is it your responsibility, my responsibility, to change our actions (e.g. walk or bike instead of drive, reduce meat and dairy consumption, commit to less air travel, minimize garbage production) to get ourselves out of this climate crisis? How much can we really do if fossil fuel corporations refuse to change their policies and practices, given that their impact is significantly greater than any one person's? How fair is it to ask someone who lives in a rural community to walk several miles instead of drive, or ask someone who lives in an urban community to grow their own produce? Is this concept of "environmentalism" more achievable for some communities than for others, and if so, why? We know who is responsible for creating the climate crisis, but who's responsible for getting us out of it?

This train of thought sent me into a deep existential confusion. For the past several years, I have been seeking out diverse narratives regarding climate change and who it most affects. I have learned that environmentalism encompasses a variety of class and social issues. For example, communities affected most by climate change and environmental risks (e.g. air and water pollution) also tend to contribute the least to the crisis. Corporations - especially those involved in the fossil fuel industry - have convinced individuals that the onus of fixing the climate crisis is on us, and yet they are the largest contributors to the crisis itself. BP even promotes a carbon footprint calculator, despite being the sixth (6th) largest contributor to carbon emissions in the entire world, generating 2.5%. There is honestly very little I or you or all of us can do without climate policies that would hold those corporations to account. But that doesn't mean we can't do something. One of my favorite quotes to live by is this: "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do little." And honestly, we can only do a little, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't give it our all.

My sustainability journey has transformed so much. I still care a lot about reducing my garbage generation. I still love bringing my reusables to the grocery store. I still don't eat much meat or dairy. I walk or bike as often as I can. But now, I focus my environmentalism more on learning about how it intertwines with social and class issues. Garbage production is obviously really important (fun fact: every piece of plastic ever made STILL EXISTS because it takes hundreds of years to degrade), but the ability for marginalized groups to experience the same benefits of the environment as I get to has become the larger goal of my environmentalism.

If you're interested, here is a list of resources for growing your perspective on environmentalism, environmental racism, environmental classism, and environmental accessibility:

Documentaries:

The True Cost (available here)

Saving Coral (available on Netflix)

There's Something in the Water (available on Netflix)

Books:

Rising - Elizabeth Rush

Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer

A Terrible Thing to Waste - Harriett A. Washington

Podcasts

The Yikes Podcast

Dismantled

Conscious Chatter

People to follow on Instagram*

@intersectionalenvironmentalist

@greengirlleah

@diandramarizet

@indigenouswomenhike

@mariebeech

@ajabarber

@mikaelaloach

@pattiegonia

@she_colorsnature

@queerbrownvegan

@wawa_gatheru

@aditimayer

@nativeinla

* I recognize that Instagram is not a credible source of information; however, these accounts have opened my eyes to different perspectives and experiences, particularly related to how various marginalized demographics relate to their environments and outdoor activities, as well as providing credible sources through which I can do my own research. Also, it's the smallest amount of effort to put into increasing exposure to different views and can lead to more resources, as well as building empathy for other people, because they are, in fact, real people, and I believe we are more inclined to help others if we are actively receptive to their vulnerabilities.