Trash Bags
This one may not be a necessity, but it depends on where you are camping. One of the biggest tenets of the outdoor life is leave no trace. Meaning that there should be no remnants of your camping adventure that can be found. Different levels of campers deal with this at different levels. Some people feel this means don’t litter while others will collect their ashes, not leave rocks in a fire circle formation… We are not here to make those decisions for you, but to suggest you attempt to leave no trace.
If you are staying at a state park or someplace more like a KOA you will most likely have trashcans and dumpsters that you can utilize and may not need your own trash bags. But, your campsite may not have any type of dumpster in which case you will need to do something with your trash.
Many backpackers will get gallon sized double zipper locked bags. They hold a decent amount of trash and the double zipper holds in the smell if there is one. You can also buy normal trash bags. Smaller is typically better as most people camping don’t generate a ton of trash.
Lots of times we will use grocery bags or fast food bags like subway. These simple bags are small and we have a ton of them so it is a really easy way to deal with trash.
One of the more important things to realize about your garbage is that it is often a enticing item for wildlife. The types of wildlife will make a big difference in how you deal with it. In Texas we are mostly dealing with deer, raccoons, skunks, armadillos… These pests will steal food and garbage that is easily accessible. So it is typically good enough to keep your garbage in the car or RV depending on what you are camping with.
But, if you are dealing with wolves, bears, mountain lions… You might want to utilize bear sacks.
Bear sacks are armored bags that you hang from trees to keep rodents out and out of reach of bears. But these still can entice wildlife, so you want to hang them in trees that are at least 100 feet away from your campsite. I would imagine coming face to face with a bear at 3am is not fun.