An excursion into the natural pollution area: heaps of misery

heaps of misery
An excursion to the natural pollution area

My vacation was absolutely hikeable! I walked uphill and downhill through nature, which was so natural that I couldn’t always have called a taxi for the way back – only if necessary the mountain rescue service. Fortunately, the hiking trails were clearly marked. Unfortunately not only by red or yellow markings on the trees, but also by an accompanying track of more or less white paper handkerchiefs in a more or less advanced state of dissolution. Some flapped brittlely in the branches, without contact lenses I would have taken them for a Baden version of Tibetan prayer flags. And wherever I wanted to explore a secret detour, there was no house at the lake at the end of the path, but a collection of handkerchiefs bloomed between yellow gentians and alpine bluebells, which were often joined by other rubbish. These mute witnesses to dirty business ruined the most beautiful vantage points for me.

So I was already alarmed when the sprightly pensioner couple appeared in front of us on the path: He walked lightheartedly, she carried the backpack behind. When we both caught up, Mom Sherpa was getting the pack of tissues out of his backpack, handing two to Dad, and he turned to look for them in the undergrowth. I stopped and called out, “Hey – but you don’t want to leave the tissues behind afterwards, do you?” “It’s rotting”said the old Wandervogel nonchalantly. “But probably slower than you,” I hissed before my friend pulled me on.

Dirty Reality

Not-so-Fun-Fact: According to the Austrian Alpine Association, a handkerchief needs one to five years to decompose. Cigarette butts lying at the foot of every bench last two to seven years – and contaminate up to 40 liters of groundwater with nicotine, dioxin, formaldehyde and cadmium. A pack of energy bars lasts 30 to 50 years, while a banana peel only lasts a few months.

Shit and go. Garbage mountain instead of Feldberg. What kind of abusive love of nature is that? How can you want to relax in the most original environment possible – and then literally shit on nature? In Scotland there are already bag dispensers at mountain stations with “special” poop bags for exiting hikers and instructions to use them and then throw them into the buckets provided. What you have been doing for your dog for a long time should only be logical for you. If you want to know exactly, you can read “How to shit in the woods” (Conrad Stein Verlag): “Tips for doing business in the wild. Numerous product tips for practical tools – from folding spades to foldable cardboard toilets.” But does it really need it? I’m not very well versed in hiking yet, but if you’re so disgusted with your own bodily waste that you can’t put your wipes in a ziplock freezer bag and throw them in the garbage back in civilization, you have nothing to do with nature .

Karina Luebke writes, rages and walks in Hamburg. She always has a garbage bag with her

barbara