Locals furious over mess left by Burning Man festival

Residents of a popular stop-over location for Burning Man attendees have complained about illegal waste being dumped in the neighbourhood after the annual Black Rock Desert event ended this week.

Tents, food and alcohol bottles have all been spotted around Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada border and neighbouring Reno, Nevada, in the days following the 2022 addition of Burning Man, business owners, locals and officials told SFGate.

“What I’ve seen are large construction bags of trash, alcohol bottles, tons of food, tents and large aluminium poles from shade structures,” said a business owner in Truckee, California, to the news outlet.

“People just unload their motor homes. I’ve seen people sometimes spend four to six hours pulling everything out of their vehicles, then wash their cars and their belongings,” he continued. “One camper can fill up half of my capacity.”

“The most egregious ones are late at night, with people unloading everything you can think of,” said the same business owner. “The ones at night know what they’re doing isn’t right, they treat my business like a public dump”.

About 80,000 festival-goers attend Burning Man, which asks visitors to “leave no trace” of their presence in the Nevada desert. The festival also warns against dumping waste in the dozens of towns nearby – as well as those further away, such as in California.

“Do NOT discard refuse along the highway,” the festival warned ahead of 2022 Burning Man. “Not only is litter irresponsible and costly in terms of energy, time and money for others, it is also illegal and reflects very badly on Burning Man”.

Burning Man said in another message about dumping waste: “There are a number of small towns dotted around the Black Rock Desert, and thousands of Burners make their way through them en route to and from Burning Man. Please pay all these towns the utmost respect on your way through.”

While similar complaints have been aired before about the behaviour of Burning Man visitors, who pass through Nevada and neighbouring California on their way to and from the hedonistic music and cultural festival, the people who dump trash along the way are thought to be in the minority of attendees, according to SFGate.

“I really enjoy watching the activities both pre- and post-Burning Man,” a resident of the Lake Tahoe area told the news outlet. “I find the artwork and people that come through are very interesting and creative. I enjoy them coming to our community, shopping and eating”.

They added: “It has a positive impact as well. I just hope that people will treat our community with the same respect as they do the playa.”

Speaking after the 2019 edition of Burning Man, Athena Lamebull, a waste disposal business owner from Nevada told KUNR however: “Some people, even when they leave here, they just throw it off the road. They don’t want to pay, so they just throw [it] off the road”.