How do I go to the toilet outdoors properly?

This is the least discussed and most consequential piece of outdoor practice. Popular summits, bothies and lochside pitches in Britain now have a visible problem with human waste and toilet paper, and it is entirely a result of people not knowing or not bothering. The technique takes two minutes.

Safety

What you'll need

• A lightweight trowel
• Sealable bags for used paper
• Hand sanitiser
• Biodegradable paper, or a pee cloth

Step by step

1. Get well away from water, paths and camps.At least 30 metres from any watercourse, loch, spring or standing water — that is about 30 large paces, further than instinct suggests. Also well away from paths, huts, bothies, popular pitches and anywhere people sit.
2. Choose ground that will break it down.Deep, dark, organic soil with plant life is full of the microbes that decompose waste. Sand, bare rock, gravel, scree and thin peat are not. Choose the greener, more vegetated spot.
3. Dig a proper hole.At least 15 centimetres deep — a hand span — and wide enough to be useful. A small trowel makes this easy and a boot heel usually does not. Keep the turf or the plug of vegetation aside in one piece.
4. Fill it in and replace the turf.Push the soil back, put the turf back on top and press it down. Done properly, the site is invisible in a day and decomposed within months.
5. Carry out all paper and wipes.Toilet paper takes far longer to break down than people think, and animals dig it up. Wet wipes never break down at all. Put everything in a sealed bag — a zip bag inside an opaque one — and bin it at the first opportunity. Burning paper has started moorland fires and is not an option.
6. Carry it out where you cannot bury it.High rocky ground, thin peat, snow, sensitive sites, popular summits, canyons and anywhere frozen. Use a proper human waste bag with a gelling agent, or a double-bagged system. This is standard practice on busy mountains worldwide and is becoming so on Britain's most-visited hills.
7. Manage urine separately and sensibly.Urine is largely sterile and the issue is concentration and smell rather than disease. Go away from paths, camps and water, avoid vegetation that animals will then dig up for the salt, and prefer rock or gravel where you can. A reusable pee cloth, dried in the sun, avoids paper entirely.
8. Deal with periods properly.Everything — pads, tampons, applicators — goes into a sealed opaque bag and comes out with you. Nothing is buried, nothing is burnt. A menstrual cup rinsed with treated water reduces the waste to nothing and many people find it far easier outdoors.
9. Clean your hands properly.Alcohol gel is the practical answer on the hill, though it is less effective against some organisms than soap and water. Wash properly with biodegradable soap well away from water at camp. Almost all camping stomach upsets are hand-to-mouth transmission rather than the water supply.
10. Use the facilities when there are any.Campsite toilets, public conveniences and cafes are always the better option. Plan the day so you use them, and use them before setting off.
11. Manage children in advance.Children give little notice. Carry the trowel and bags somewhere accessible, teach them the 30-metre rule as a game of counting paces, and pack more bags than you expect to need.

Tips

• A lightweight trowel weighs very little and is the difference between doing this properly and scraping at the ground with a rock.
• Go before you leave the campsite or the car park. It is the simplest solution and it is available most of the time.
• In snow, do not bury it — snow melts and everything reappears in spring on exactly the routes people walk. Carry it out.
• Keep the waste bag in an outside pocket of the rucksack, not with the food.
• Bothies rarely have toilets. Take the trowel, and go a long way from the bothy and from the burn it draws water from.

Common mistakes

• Going just off the path behind a rock — That is where everyone goes, and popular spots become genuinely unpleasant. Walk the 30 metres.
• Leaving toilet paper under a stone — It blows out, animals dig it up, and it persists for a very long time. Carry it out in a bag.
• Burying waste near a stream because the digging is easier there — That is exactly the water somebody downstream is filtering and drinking, and it is how Giardia and Cryptosporidium spread.

Questions people ask