Wag Bag Disposal Program Aims to Curb Human Waste in Desert, Trash Compactors

Arba Adams is covered head to toe in PPE, wearing a full-length smock, gloves and mask. The get-up is meant to help her properly handle the contents inside a bright white trash bin.

“This one’s a little ripe,” she remarks, peering into a flap cut into its top. 

Adams is the program manager at Canyonlands Solid Waste Authority. This white trashcan she’s inspecting is an official ‘wag bag’ disposal bin at the Lions Park Transit Hub.

“Just getting people to know what they are and to use them is a really big hurdle,” says Adams. “So if we can get that to happen – that’s fantastic.” 

Wag bags, or ‘Waste Alleviation and Gelling Bags,’ are portable containers meant to be used when the need strikes, say, out on a desert trail. At the Lions Park Transit Hub, more than a few people have figured out how to dispose of the bags correctly. 

“Our collections workers… told me in advance that this would be the good place. Where they’ve found the most human waste and wag bags has been here,” says Adams. 

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Finding human waste in the regular trash has become a big problem for solid waste workers. Ron Bogart with Canyonlands Solid Waste Authority says “nothing ruins your day worse than being covered in human waste. I’ve seen just with my own eyes, two separate drivers be hit human waste. And it’s just miserable.”

Bogart has worked in Moab’s solid waste industry for over a decade. He’s separated garbage at the transfer station and driven a collections route. Now, he’s a supervisor. 

“I’ve seen it all,” he says. “Every unsavory bit of it.”

Over his 11 years in the industry, Bogart affirms that human waste has become much more of a problem. Collections workers are finding more wag bags in residential and commercial trash cans. He says they’re also finding ammo cans and five-gallon buckets full of waste. 

“When I started, we would see maybe on the high end, one [container of human waste] a week,” Bogart says. “…And now we’re getting into the double digits weekly, easily. Now it’s getting to the point where we’re finding five-gallon buckets that people have been using for extended amounts of time. We’ve found 30-gallon trash bags being used as wag bags, but they’re completely full. It’s absolutely increased in the time I’ve been here.”

Wag bag disposal bins are placed in five strategic locations around town, including the solid waste authority. KZMU/Molly Marcello

This increase means more chances of a ‘miserable’ day for solid waste employees on their collections route. According to Bogart, that’s because the truck compresses trash. 

“So what happens is, we don’t see [wag bags] go into the truck. And then there’s a blade that creates a lot of pressure as it compacts the garbage,” he says. “And if that wag bag’s in just the right spot, it puts it under enough pressure where it will rupture, and then out it comes. And if you’re standing in the wrong spot, then it’s gonna hit you.”

Bogart says one driver got “covered from head to toe” in human waste. That driver went straight to his house, took several showers, and threw away his clothes. 

“He was just done,” says Bogart. “It’s absolutely discouraging. We deal with everything nobody wants in their life. They throw it away. And that’s what we deal with every day.”

At the Southeast Utah Health Department, environmental health scientist Jonathan Dutrow is concerned about the transmission of infectious disease. Human waste on public lands can contaminate water. And human waste in a trash compactor can expose workers.  

“Moab’s probably not the only community having issues with this,” says Dutrow. “But, as far as I know, we’re the only community that has actually banned wag bags from going into the trash. And we’re also the community that really needs to have wag bags in use.”

The Center for Outdoor Ethics runs the influential Leave No Trace program. They say when it comes to ‘Number 2’ on the trail, it’s important to minimize water contamination, social impacts and the spread of disease. For a popular desert ecosystem like Moab, that means packing out everything that you pack in. 

“With the thousands of tourists we have now exploring our area, it’s creating a situation where people [really] need to be hauling out all their waste,” says Dutrow.

On a recent weekend at the Mill Creek Trailhead, Grand County’s responsible recreation coordinator, Anna Sprout, interacts with visitors as part of the trail ambassador program. Under their big green tent, they have water, information about biocrust and local fire restrictions. It’s a one stop shop for trail education. 

“And we have stickers as a ‘thank you’ for staying on the trail,” explains Sprout. “We give these out only after folks have done the hard work of one, having fun. And two, taking care of our trail.”

Responsible recreation coordinator Anna Sprout interacts with visitors at the Mill Creek Trailhead. KZMU/Molly Marcello

They also have free wag bags, each one bearing a label with the address of an approved disposal site. Sprout says starting conversations about human waste with visitors can be “really funny and awkward conversations to have. But you just kind of have to embrace the awkwardness of it.

Let’s say I’ve talked about biocrust. It’s early in the morning. And I say, ‘just so you know, we also have an ordinance here in this county, where we can’t leave human waste in the desert. We can’t dig holes anymore, like we can in other ecosystems. And so if the coffee strikes, it’s really important to use a toilet of some type.’”

Sprout and the trail ambassadors have many of these conversations with visitors.  While stationed at Corona Arch one day this season, trail ambassadors interacted with a record 1,000 people. At Mill Creek, a busy day can average around 300 to 400 interactions. And if just one percent of those visitors needs to use the bathroom on the trail, it can become problematic. 

“On a trail, you can find different areas [where] it builds up slowly until it’s too much. And so we want to stop the slow flow of poop our area,” says Sprout. “And I think for the longest time, people have been doing what we were taught was right, which was to either bury it or do some other desert specific disposal. And now it’s changing. And it seems slightly more inconvenient and slightly more gross to carry out your waste. But what’s left is even grosser because it affects larger populations of people. And so it’s about changing a small part of the culture in every type of sport we have out here.”

Changing culture will take time, but representatives from this interagency waste disposal effort say it’s all about education. 

“We all hope that there’s a magic bullet somewhere that we could just take care of this,” says Dutrow at the health department. But I think we’re looking at several years to really kind of make these changes and start talking about changing human behavior.” 

In his opinion, wag bags are helpful, but they are not the only solution. They are full of plastic, and “somebody still has to deal with them – they still have to go to landfill.” 

He’d like to see more people, especially long-term campers, using portable toilets. Dutrow says the health department has secured partial funding for a SCAT machine, basically “an industrial dishwasher” for portable toilets, used commonly at marinas and river take outs. This is another approach to dealing with human waste in the Moab community. 

“At some point as a community, the county agencies, the health department, the solid waste authority – we’re gonna have to get together here. We’re going to have to put some money towards it if we want to solve this problem,” says Dutrow. “This county almost needs a ‘poop crew’ to deal with this.”

For now, a main member of the county’s semi-official ‘poop crew’ is Adams from the solid waste authority. Back at Lions Park, she explains how wag bags journey from the disposal bins to the landfill. She puts them in her truck, “and then I just drive [them] directly to the transfer station and we dump [them] right on a trailer. Nothing gets compacted, [they go] straight to Klondike landfill.”

She’s pretty cheerful about piloting collections for the experimental wag bag disposal program. 

“I’m just so happy to help my coworkers,” says Adams. “Some of them have been doing this twenty, thirty years, you know? They’re essential workers…It’s a hard job.”

Adams says if she can help divert human waste from their trash compacters, she feels like she’s really contributing to the team. 

A few weeks into the program, this wag bag disposal bin at the Lions Park Transit Hub is already seeing use KZMU/Molly Marcello

The experimental wag bag disposal system will run from June through September. Then, local agencies will evaluate the data and make recommendations for the future. But representatives from the various cooperating agencies already know they would like the system to expand – which would likely require funding. So for now, the city, county, health department and solid waste authority say they will work with what they have: five white ‘wag bag’ bins placed in strategic locations around Moab. 

“And I wouldn’t call it a solution because you’re never going to solve the problem of human waste, it’s always gonna be there,” says Adams. “But how can we manage it the best way we can with the resources that we have?”

For more on how to pack out and dispose of human waste in the Moab area, visit discovermoab.com/poop.