HADD Annual Meetings Held in Russia
The First International HADD Annual Directors Forum was held in July in our field office near Mineralnye Vody in the Caucasus region of Russia, where we met with our staff leader, Olga Lukina, Alpinist guide as well as HADD Advisor Dr. Nickolay Volynsky, surgeon. Additionally a HADD group enjoyed a successful ascent up Mt. Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe (some 18,437 feet high). At our meeting we initiated plans to design/build an improved "outhouse" at Pruit No. 11, the Mt. Elbrus high camp at 13,800 feet, a facility which Outside magazine (Feb. '93) called "the world's nastiest outhouse".
The First International HADD Congress was held at the Hotel Rossia, next to the Kremlin, in Moscow on 22-24 July, with hundreds in attendance.
Our motto for 1994 was:
"Your movement is our movement"
HADD was founded in 1990 by Dr. A. Bern Hoff, scientist, parasitologist and grassroots environmentalist, after the joy of hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, Galdopiggen in Norway, Haleakula in Hawaii, and the Kaibob Trail in the Grnad Canyon was blunted by the presence of human and domesticated animal feces on or near the trail.
Dr. Hoff realized that there was an accelerating collision course between the soaring world population and the increase in the numbers of people who walk or hike the trails of the world for better health and pleasure and/or for simple access and transport. The feces-littered trail posed both a health and aesthetic problem.
HADD was organized as an international clearinghouse ... a databank for technological transfer ... to gather and disseminate accurate information re: the proper handling and disposal of droppings of human and small domesticated animals from our walkways, parks and trails.
For a fee of $20.00 a new member receives a HADD membership card and mission statement, a decal, an iron-on heat transfer, a model urban/suburban ordinance re: pet droppings, as well as access to the HADD clearinghouse and open forum ... and a chance to make a meaningful change in our environment!!! Also included is a land deed to a square inch of our HADD preserve in Maine, a wooded glen of some 13,000,000 square inches of unspoiled mixed forest.
A HADD membership makes an excellent gift to a walking or hiking enthusiast, or possible to a person who needs to hear/heed the HADD message to "clean up their act".
Contact:
Lucy Pearson, V.P.
for Membership
Our Motto for 1995 is:
"One small movement for a man, one giant movement
for mankind (or is it personkind?)"
Disposable Answer to Nature's Call
Did you know you can buy a PC for less than $12? No, it's not a personal computer. It's a portable Personal Commode-- a "human ecology toilet" that the supplier says is "ready to go when you are."
The Personal Commode is made of heavy-duty, biodegradable cardboard and uses biodegradable, disposable plastic liners. The cardboard seat can support up to 1,200 lbs., and folds up when not in use. The units saw duty in Operation Desert Storm, and company spokesman Rick Diaz says the camouflage version used by the military is still the most popular model. But he says the system is widely useful for disasters like the L.A. quake, for use by agricultural field workers, for remote construction sites, or anywhere people have to work away from sanitary facilities.
The toilet sells for $11.95 and comes with three liners. Replacement liners cost $1.95/dozen, and a shower curtain-like "privacy cover" is available for $49.95. To order, call 800/633-3246.
Symposium Proceedings Available
In 1991 The Alpine Club of Canada convened the Water, Energy, and Waste Management in Alpin Shelters Symposium at Chateau Lake Louise in Alberta, chaired by Mike Mortimer, V.P.-Facilities for the Club. Subsequently, The Club published The Proceedings of The Symposium some 208 pages of current information complete with technical data support. The publication features 17 subjects plus interesting closing notes and appendices. Included are the following selected subjects which may be of interest to HADD members:
1) Sense and Nonsense of Human Diseases in the Wilderness
2) A Review of Energy and Waste Management Systems in
Select Alpine Regions of Europe and North America
3) Enviro-Engineering Issues Pertaining to Installation
of Waste Management Systems
4) Aerobic, Septic, and Gray Water Systems
5) Composting, Evaporative and Dry Pit Options
6) Feasibility Study of an Arctic Incineration Unit
7) Pros and Cons of the Disposal of Waste through
Fly-Out and Drive-Out Methods
8) A feasibility Study of Composting at The Alpine
Club of Canada Huts
9) A Brief History of Toilets
For a copy of the Proceedings, send $50.00 via
cheque, Visa or MasterCard to:
The Alpine Club of Canada
P.O. Box 2040
Canmore, AB, TOL OMO Canada
Join the Everest Environmental Project !!!
For the past 6 years the Everest Environmental Project has raised funds to carry out two environmental expeditions to Tibet, work projects in India and Nepal, and has served as a voice for issues involving mountain environments. The group now has over 1300 members in 26 countries.
In 1994 EEP initiated a "buy back" program for used oxygen bottles and trash. Over 250 oxygen bottles were brought down from the South Col. Additionally EEP continues to feature their solar toilet as a centerpiece of their agenda. Two have been installed in both Nepal and India.
Two of the solar toilets have been installed in Custer County, Colorado, just south of Colorado Springs. A group of Air Force Academy cadets are studying the technological issues of the system and will report soon. Additionally, they note that Custer County will ban all outhouses in 1997.
You may wish to join EEP for $10.00/year at:
Everest Environmental Project
3730 Wind Dance Lane Colorado Springs,CO 80906
P.S. For $15.00 you can get a solar
toilet video!!
On the Control of Caca in the Caucasus: A Status Report
In 1993 the HADD Directors unanimously selected the "outhouse" at Priutt No.13 on Mt Elbrus in the Caucasus Mountains near the Georgian border in southwestern Russia, as a major focused improvement project. We have worked with several Russian guides and officials, and as expected the project is moving along very slowly. The recent turmoil in nearby Chechnya has placed additional challenges in our way. Nevertheless, we have chosen to continue this key project, which is currently in the design phase with a focus on using a portion of the "bombed out" building immediately adjacent to the current "two-holer". If you have any interest in assisting on this project, can speak Russian, have any contacts in the area, or have any plans for being in the area in the near future, please advise.
HELP
We need your help in gaining up-to-date information from your vantage point.
1) Experiences (good or bad) with the design and enforcement of policies, ordinances, or regulation on a local, regional, or national basis, that focus on the avoidance or removal of human or domestic animal feces from walking or hiking trails.
2) New techniques, packaging, simple bio-chemical systems or agents, etc., that address the environmentally-safe destruction or transport of human or domestic animal feces.
3) Any other new or novel idea or concept that addresses our challenge...the "fece-free trail"...or is it "feces-free trail"?...or "faex-free trail?...for not one dropping is acceptable! HADD serves as a clearing-house for such timely and vital information. We look forward to hearing from you, for this is serious s___!!!
More HADD in the Media
"Your Movement Is Our Movement"
With the slogan,"dedicated to a fece-free trail," the international group Hikers Against Doo-Doo (HADD) has become quite a, well, movement. HADD was founded in 1990 by parasitologist A. Bern Hoff following his "fece-full hikes on Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, Galdopiggen in Norway, and Haleakula in Hawaii. Hoff realized that the problem was not simply a matter of aesthetics, but could also pose some serious health concerns.
HADD has become, literaly, the lead pooper-scooper for the globe's popular peaks. For the Mt. Elbrus high camp at 13,800 feet--the place Outside magazine dubbed as "the world's nastiest outhouse"---HADD is raising funds to design and build an improved commode.
HADD's motto for 1995: "One small movement for a man...One giant movement for mankind." HADD seeks information on written policies and regulations regarding avoidance or removal of feces from trails, new techniques to destroy or transport backcountry feces, and any new ideas for a "fece-free trail." Write HADD, Box 271, Hampden, ME 04444.
SCAT,SCAT!
Hikers Against Doo Doo (animal and human) is looking for a new motto. The group was founded in 1990 by Bernhoff Dahl, a Maine parasitologist who was incensed by what he found on mountain paths around the world. The group claims 1,000 members, 19 of whom attended its 1993 International Congress in Moscow, and has developed model urban pooper-scooper ordinances as well as plans to help clean up Mount Everest. The 1995 motto? "One Small Movement for a Man, One Giant Movement for Mankind." Send suggestions for the 1996 slogan to HADD, P.O. Box 271, Hampden, ME. 04444
Motto Contest: 1996
This recent article in The New York Times Sunday Magazine
got us off to an early start for our next official HADD
motto...for 1996.
We have already received some choice suggestions. Do
keep those ideas coming!
Corrections:
Dr. Hoff not Dahl
Mt. Elbrus not Everest
HADD in the Media
Alliance
After several hours of hiking, you're just about to reach the summit. You take a deep breath, when suddenly you're assailed by an unmistakable eau de, um, toilet. Horrified, you discover that what you almost stepped in was issued not by a bear or even a dog, but, yikes, by another hiker.
It was just such a pile that go A. Bern Hoff going three years ago. A 55-year old pathologist from Hampden Maine, Hoff founded Hikers Against Doo-Doo for walkers who have HADD it with poop in their paths.
"More people are out enjoying open spaces. But I've seen terrible things-- specifically, people droppings," says Hoff. After his Mt. Kilimanjaro and Grand Canyon hikes were marred by guano de sapiens, Hoff got to work.
"It's both an aesthetic and a health problem," he says, "We want domesticated animals and people to behave better. We're tongue in cheek, of course, but we are serious about trying to clean up the environment."
HADD serves as an international clearinghouse, sharing information and tips on environmentally safe packaging and disposal techniques. "We plan to develop new technology that anyone could use, like biodegradable disposal bags that can go in a toilet," says Hoff.
But if nature catches you unprepared, HADD has one request: Be responsible. Haul out your waste or bury it 200 feet from any water source. And remember the group's motto for 1994: "Your movement is our movement."
For more information, or to become a member ($20), write to HADD, Box 271, Hampden, Maine 04444.
--Rachel Eugster
Walking Magazine
Poop Patrol
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but call it what you will, shit stinks. Especially when it sits smack in the middle of your favorite trail. Hikers Against Doo-Doo (HADD) are mad as hell about the proliferation of excrement--be it horse, hound or human--on our walkways, parks and trails. "Nobody wants to deal with this, so I said, 'Hey, I'll do it. This has got to stop, says HADD president A. Bern Hoff, M.D.. He founded the organization in 1990 after finding abundant human and domesticated animal feces on or near trails in Mount Kilimanjaro, Norway, Hawaii and the Grand Canyon. Members now number near 1,000 with chapters around the world.
Although HADD approaches the subject with humor, the organization is dead serious about the aesthetic and health impact of will-nilly defecation. Besides gathering information for an international databank and clearinghouse, HADD members ascended Europe's highest peak, Mount Elbrus in Russia, last year to survey what's been deemed "the world's nastiest outhouse." The group initiated plans to design and build an improved facility at the mountain's 13,800-foothigh camp.
For a $20 fee, you too can join the movement. Members receive a HADD membership card and mission statement, a decal, an iron-on transfer and a model urban/suburban ordinance controlling pet droppings. Members also gain access to the HADD clearinghouse and open forum on policies, ordinances and regulations for avoidance or removal of human and domestic animal feces from trails and new techniques, packaging, biochemical systems or agents that address environmentally safe destruction or transportation of waste. Write HADD, Box 271, Hampden ME 04444.
EcoTraveler Magazine