Is Burning Man bad for the environment? 'Of course it is'

BLACK ROCK CITY, Nev. — While Burning Man is the world's largest Leave No Trace event, the weeklong festival drawing 70,000 people to the Nevada desert has a major, albeit dispersed, environmental impact.

From the constant hum of generators powering air conditioning inside luxury RVs to the trucks vacuuming out waste from the ever-filling 1,600 port-a-potties, vehicles play a central role in this event.

The vast majority of attendees drove here, despite organizers' efforts to push bus service. They have made progress on carpooling, however, by charging stiff vehicle access rates.

Others flew in from around the world, and the Burning Man airport itself was expecting to see more than 2,000 flight arrivals and departures over the week. At the temporary airport, planes land directly on the desert floor.

The tax revenues alone hint at the size of Burning Man, which pours $55 million into the northern Nevada economy annually as visitors gas up, buy cases of bottled water and pack their coolers full of beer.

"This event is not environmentally sustainable and I don't think anybody thinks it is," said attendee and software engineer Mike MacHenry of Somerville, Mass. "You can't live without wet wipes and paper towels out here."

Like many attendees, MacHenry and his friends consider themselves environmentalists. They commute by bike or mass transit and talk knowledgeably of carbon footprints. MacHenry said he feels a little bit like Al Gore, flying around on a polluting airplane to warn people of the dangers of global warming.

"Is it bad for the environment?" asked Mark Reynolds, executive director of Citizens' Climate Lobby, a grassroots advocacy organization. "Yes, of course it is. Is it something we should spend a lot of time and energy getting worked up about? I don't think so."

Burning Man organizers acknowledge the environmental impact their event has, but point out that when the city is dismantled next week, no trace will remain. And they say the fact that nearly 70,000 people won't be driving, showering regularly or using air conditioning for a week likely has significant environmental benefits.

Still, it's hard to look around this temporary city without noticing the vast amount of resources people have hauled out to create this bacchanalian oasis of music, art and culture.

"Every year camps get more and more elaborate. I'm asking people, do you really need that second tub of costumes?" said Megan Miller, a spokeswoman for Burning Man. "I'm encouraging people to get back to basics."

Burning Man has strict guidelines about what attendees can bring. Greeters inspect vehicles for items considered likely to leave behind trash or glitter, and even fresh-cut flowers are subject to confiscation for fear their petals might pollute the desert .

But there's no limit to how many generators attendees can haul in, and some of the luxury camps seem to keep their car-sized generators running 24/7 to power the motor coaches, air conditioning and flush toilets set aside for their guests. A constant stream of trucks enter the side gate of the event, bringing in ice, fresh water and even produce for those who made advance arrangements. While "radical self-reliance" is one of the central tenets of Burning Man, nothing prohibits attendees from using their money to make it more enjoyable.

At MacHenry's modest "Embassy" camp, piles of baby wipes covered a table on Thursday as group members tried to clean themselves up from Wednesday's choking dust storms. They good-naturedly ribbed a visitor they deemed too clean to be having an authentic Burning Man experience, and explained how they removed excess packaging from their food before loading up for the trip. Paper plates and glass are banned, too.

"It makes you realize how much packaging there really is on stuff," said Sally Peach of Denver.

There are no community trash cans at Burning Man, and attendees are responsible for hauling out their own garbage. That keeps attendees focused on how much waste they generate but also allows the event to disguise its true impact because there are no centralized statistics about trash generation. The one major centralized service, sewage removal, is done by constantly circling tanker trucks, which offload their contents into larger tankers that are driven south, out of the event, to be emptied.

And while people have been trickling in all week, most leave Sunday or early Monday in a process known as Exodus, causing massive traffic jams for the 100-mile drive south to Reno. Things have gotten so bad that organizers now force people to shut off their vehicles while waiting to leave, periodically allowing them to roll forward one mile at a time before temporarily parking again.

Even the art comes with an environmental cost. Many of the sculptures belch flames fueled by propane, and when the Man on Saturday and the Temple on Sunday are burned, diesel will fuel their flames.

"It definitely has an environmental impact, but so do so many things people do at home every day and no one writes stories about that," said Presley Pizzo, a software engineer from Somerville, Mass.

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