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Trash In The Cache?


Jones_Crew

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We are new to geocaching, but love it so far. 6 finds in first week :D . I was wondering about all the (Sorry if I ofend anybody) trash that we find in the caches. Broken junk toys, an old baby pacifier, old batteries (Complete with the gritty dried crud on it). Is it accptable to clean this stuff out? Not sure why folks leave stuff like this to begin with, but hey---there may be a reason. Thanks in advance.

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Unfortunately this was similar to my first experience. Many of our local caches (especially the older ones) had either an abundance of either pocket trash or were nearly empty.

 

Yes, please do us all a favor by doing some housekeeping. One man's trash is another man's treasure doesn't apply here. Also you can set a good example by always trading up; leaving a better trade item than you took.

 

Another thing you can do to help is unofficially adopting a nearby cache by checking on it and adding swag from time to time. I often go to auctions and sales to find inexpensive nifty things to do this. This is particulary helpful if the original hider has fallen off the radar screens.

 

Thanks for bringing this topic up.

Edited by Bill & Tammy
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A lot of people seem to think that geocaches are trash recepticles. Many caches start out with junk and end up with junk, the rest start out with great stuff and end up with junk.

 

Cleaning it out really isn't your job, but if you want to trade out some of the garbage and add some nice stuff, nobody will complain. That does get expensive after a while though, which is why I stopped doing it. That and I realized that I can fix it up real nice and in 2 months it will be filled with garbage again, so its a pointless excersize.

Edited by briansnat
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Obvious debris can be cleaned out of a cache ... leaves, twigs, dried mud chunks. But be careful with actual 'objects' even if they broken. These pieces of junk have value to some people. As already mentioned, if you find something in a cache that you feel is a piece of garbage, then trade for it and throw it into the first trashcan you see. :D

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Obvious debris can be cleaned out of a cache ... leaves, twigs, dried mud chunks. But be careful with actual 'objects' even if they broken. These pieces of junk have value to some people. As already mentioned, if you find something in a cache that you feel is a piece of garbage, then trade for it and throw it into the first trashcan you see. :ph34r:

This is my fairly constant practice. I happen to have a steady supply of free swag so there's no expense. I think it's a great thing to do to keep the standards up some. But as mentioned previously, it doesn't last. One or two families with 3 or 4 kids all trading stuff they no longer want can have a big, quick impact. I also tend to stock my own caches with only a few toys, and lots of items that just about anybody could use. So far, this seems to stave off the plundering. Even a kid can't honestly look at a chewed, 4-cent army guy and call it a fair trade for a flashlight.

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TheWife and I find the various Dollar Stores are great places to find good swag for trading at reasonable prices. We try to get stuff we'll think kids will like and stuff we think adults may be able to get into.

 

Today we bought playing cards, stickers, glo-sticks, some Harry Potter trading cards, and some clip-on watches for something like 11 dollars... not a bad deal at all and stuff we can leave without feeling guilty.

 

But I agree that we do tend to see a lot of caches filled with junk.

 

I took the kid of a friend out a few months back and after a lot of work and walking we got to the cache only to find it there wasn't anything other than useless junk in it. I was embarressed for us as a group, and saddened for him.

 

For me, finding the cache is all I really want to do and I don't care about whatever trade item I might take from it, but for kids, the trade is half the fun!

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Broken junk toys, an old baby pacifier, old batteries (Complete with the gritty dried crud on it). Is it accptable to clean this stuff out?

Any of these items can be taken out of a cache and to the trash (or hazmat service for the battery). And all the soggy, moldy paper items (except the logbook), cigarettes, condoms, porn ads and any number of other items that a reasonable person could easily determine does not belong in a cache.

 

You don't need to leave anything in trade for this unless you want to upgrade the cache. There are many people who don't carry trade items most of the time. They just want to "hunt".

 

Your trash-out services benefit the cache and subsequent visitors.

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I agree with cleaning out "obvious" trash and junk from a cache. I do it but make sure I don't leave the cache empty. I will leave enough items so the cache stays interesting for the next cacher. What's trash or junk is in the eye of the beholder... but I know it when I see it.

 

I recently found this cache which I think is one of the best in the Albuquerque area. It is an old airline crash site high up on a mountain. It takes a significant hike to get there. Also the theme of the cache is aviation and survival items. We found the 50 cal ammo box stuffed with crap. Motel soaps and shampoos, the instruction book to a computer game but no game CD, used chapstick (yuck), corroded batteries, broken McToys, etc. We cleaned out enough crap to fill a large zip lock bag. We left 2 emergency flashlights and a WJTB. I think that was a fair trade. See my log and pics (I am the fat guy who looks like he is going to have a heart attack) :ph34r:

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You could always email the owner of the cache and let them know it's filled with trash and they may want to clean it out. I received an email the other day from someone suggesting that on one of my caches that's been in place for years. I did go out and check up on it, really didn't find anything I considered trash (I've seen much worse) so I just added a few new items to freshen it up a bit. :ph34r:

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I always cary a backpack full of swag to trade and replenish caches that have become sparse or trash filled. Went to a cache recently and it was almost empty. I let the kids pull out trade items (2) and refilled the cache with some nice new dollar store swag. The next finder wrote in their log about the only stuff in the cache was pretty much what I had left and that the owner might want to refill it. For the fun that I have hunting caches I don't mind taking out the trash and refilling with a few bucks worth of good swag.

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Unless something is total crap or a leaking battery etc I won't take anything out for disposal. it has to be a judgement call on your part. I usually just trade even.

I have gotten tired of seeing all the kiddie toys and not much else. I realize kids do this game too and what interest them doesn't usually interest us adults so when I trade it is for comparable items. Something I am trying is using old silver coins I bought at the local coin shop ( they usually have a couple boxes of "junk" silver that they sell at 7x face value) and I use these to "brighten up a cache". They are charging 7x face value , so a mercury dime would be seventy cents, a silver quarter is $2.75.......you get the idea. I think old coins can be fun. Now I know some folks are going to take the treasure and leave trash in it's place............they can't help being greedy jerks, it's their nature and not likely to change.

The silver is just a fun way to mix it up a bit.

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