Hiking trail signs not plain enough? Let’s tie some tape. Courtesy J.Torr.
Outdoor enthusiasts often protest about the encroachment of developed society on the wild places. But it seems some of those same enthusiasts are guilty of spoiling the very places they value so highly. By Jeremy Torr.
Tasmania, January 2022. According to Dr. Steve Allen, a researcher at Scotland’s University of Strathclyde, plastic pollution in remote and mountain areas is an increasingly worrying problem.
Allen and his team’s research has revealed that many remote and wilderness areas have significant amounts of microplastic litter. “The effects of microplastic on these (remote) areas is still being researched, but it is known that … the physical act of eating it can block the digestive tract of small creatures like worms. That is not counting the mutagenic, carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting chemicals that (those introduced) plastics carry,” he said in a recent interview.
Allen’s research indicates that much of the mountain plastic is blown in by high altitude winds - but not all of it arrives from the sky.
One day’s short walk yielded this much decaying and disintegrating tape on bushes and on the ground.
A recent walk in one area of north-eastern Tasmania, up a 9km trail through pristine eucalypt forests and high plains grasslands to the peak of Mt. Arthur yielded almost 15 metres of coloured plastic tape tied to trees, hanging off bushes and breaking down into poisonous fragments on the forest floor.
If it was crisp packets or drink bottles, the outrage would be universal. But because it is put there deliberately by outdoor walkers (nobody else could get to these trails), many hikers seem to think it is acceptable. It isn’t, it is deliberate pollution. As a guide to the scale of the problem, the Californian Forest department estimates some million rolls of tape are left in its forests each year, to rot away and enter the ecosystem as microparticles.
Official NP signs are the best markers to follow.
Nominally, all that Mt. Arthur tape was there to mark a section of the trail that somebody thought was confusing – but many of these tapes were also tied to existing permanent markers, along easily navigable trail sections, or next to somebody else’s (different colour) ribbon. They were completely superfluous, not needed at all.
A second consequence of random tape-tying is that it can confuse hikers. A walker has no idea who tied the tape there: a seasoned guide – or somebody who had already unknowingly become lost themselves. As one NatParks (NP) ranger recently noted, “inexperienced people relying on pink tape for navigation (is) potentially just a rescue waiting to happen.” Because unless the sign is a permanent NP one, you have no idea if the plastic tape marks a valid trail or not.
Of course, the tapes could have been tied on by an organised group – like a bush walking club or mountain-runners – who were using a specific trail for just one day, possibly for a competition. They often use uniquely coloured tape to mark out the exact route for participants who don’t want to look at a map or GPS every five minutes; reasonable, certainly.
But responsible groups go back the next day, and take down the all tapes they previously put out. They don’t leave them on the trail to confuse other hikers, rot down and kill insects, and poison the undergrowth.
“About 8.4 billion tonnes of plastic has been manufactured, with half of that produced in last 18 years,” says Strathclyde’s Dr. Allen. Any additional (and avoidable) plastic, especially in wilderness areas, should never be left behind or disposed of carelessly. “We’re not saying people have to go back to the dark ages, we just need to dial it back. We need to reduce (the use of plastic) while we figure out how dangerous it is.”
Trail on left, pink tape tied in on a bush case you can’t see it. Doh.
As another hiker notes on a bushwalking bulletin board, “Honestly, how is pink tape different to a Mars bar wrapper at the end of the day? Both can have been useful and to have served a purpose at some stage...” But both are simply litter.
Allen is not alone in warning against tape usage; the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service agrees with him. It specifically includes plastic tape in its list of ‘Leave No Trace’ guidelines. These spell out outdoors behaviours for would-be walkers, and include the usual advice on fires, rubbish and food. They also advise walkers to: “take maps and a compass or a GPS, and know how to use them to eliminate the use of flagging tape or rock cairns.” Previous NatParks listings have cautioned that walkers should “never create a track with tape or cairns – this is illegal and fines apply.”
But despite all this, it appears many users of our wilderness areas assume these sensible guidelines do not apply to them. They continue to leave plastic tape that not only risks killing wildlife and poisoning the landscape, but actively robs others of the chance to learn skills and to enjoy the achievement of navigating successfully in wild places.
“Pink tape encourages the idea that you don't need to learn to navigate to go into remote areas. That is what gets people lost,” says one local landowner and experienced bushwalker. “It’s not the right of anybody to think it's OK to be an unofficial navigator/surveyor for everybody else.”
Pink tape is destructive to the environment and dangerous for walkers too. Don’t use it.