Mindfulness matters #Dontfeedthelandfills

Join Subaru and the National Parks Conservation Association in their sustainability initiative to encourage national park visitors to pack-in and pack-out recyclables, employ reusable containers for food and drink, opt for online brochures and maps, and to otherwise leave the rubbish at home. The mantra is simple: #DontFeedTheLandfills in our national parks.

It’s an ethos you don’t have to leave at the park gate, either. As Meg Haywood Sullivan and Charles Post explain in the video below, daily life comprises a series of decisions, and approaching those decisions with intention and a consciousness about how they impact the environment is key to making #DontFeedTheLandfills a success.

While the national parks do offer trash and recycling pickup, visitors’ trash from picnics and camping overwhelmingly ends up in landfills. Plus, trash collection is a financial burden on the National Park Service — Denali NP spends $100,000 a year on trash collection. Wouldn’t that money be better spent protecting habitat and improving user access? Heck yeah it would.

And that’s why we should all do our part to support the #DontFeedTheLandfills initiative. Our national parks belong to all of us, so let’s make sure they stay clean and pristine for generations to come.