RV ENVIRONMENTALISTS

 

Knowing we are environmentalists, friends sometimes look amused when we announce we are planning another trip in the RV. How, they wonder, can we justify using all those fossil fuels and polluting the air with carbon compounds?

They have a point. We try to minimize the environmental damage as much as possible. Our 24’ Sprinter-based motorhome (which uses gasoline rather than diesel) gets about 13 mpg, very low compared with most autos, but high in comparison with larger rigs. When we can, we take the shortest route to destinations (though often we choose scenic routes). If a campground close to home is as appealing as one farther away, we choose the nearer one. We seldom tow anything—our inflatable kayak was carried on the Suzuki just once, but usually travels under the dinette table—to keep the RV as light as we can. As it is only 24’ long, we can drive into rather small parking spaces, and we don’t usually need to have a dinghy. Yosemite, Glacier, and some other national parks provide buses for visitors; our rig can stay in the campground. By having our own “apartment” with us, we can stay out of elaborate resorts and campgrounds that are like small towns, and stay in Forest Service campgrounds, where there has been little despoiling of the natural environment.

The propane used for heating and refrigeration goes surprisingly far, probably because the rig’s interior is small. We avoid using the microwave oven, doing most cooking in a Dutch oven on the stovetop, which also heats the interior somewhat. If we happen to have electrical hookups, a tiny ceramic heater keeps us warm without using propane. Of course, then we are using electricity; we balance that use with reading rather than watching TV. Occasionally we take wood from our home in the forest to make a campfire, if we are not going far. (Wood can harbor insects that might be invasive in other areas.) We keep the refrigerator and freezer very full, minimizing the number of shopping trips and making refrigeration as efficient as possible. When stopping for the night, we always use simple leveling blocks, which also maximizes the refrigerator’s efficiency. (This can be annoying, but is important.)

Being a coffee addict, I have to make a special effort to conserve electricity. Water is heated in a camper’s teakettle, then poured through coffee in a Melitta filter cone. If I don’t drink the coffee immediately, I save it in a thermos to avoid having to reheat it. Yet, some campers say they _must_ use their microwaves for reheating coffee!

Knowing that the fresh water tank holds only 35 gallons, which must do for showers, toilet-flushing, cooking, and cleanup, we are extremely frugal with water. Our showers are the Navy type—rinse off quickly, turn off the water, soap up, rinse again quickly, turn off the water! Or, we may take sponge baths. Yogurt containers in the shower and on the counters hold warmup water for later uses. We try to dry-camp most of the time, and use the vault toilets rather than our water-consuming toilet. Cooking and dishwashing are done with the smallest amounts of water possible, but we do use our lightweight Corelle dishes rather than disposable plastics. We wash and re-use aluminum foil, cover dishes with saucers instead of plastic wrap, and save glass and aluminum for later recycling. I always feel smug when dropping a tiny litter bag (if anything) into a campground’s Dumpster, seeing the gigantic bags inside.

My companion is an enthusiastic user of solar energy, both at home and while traveling. This means hauling a solar panel with us and hooking it up to the batteries; in sunny weather it provides enough electricity for us. In fact, we only use the generator during extreme heat waves, when air conditioning is a necessity. Only one light is on at a time, and the TV is usually off. We do use the radio, which uses a very small amount of electricity.

Though we prefer dry-camping, our small tanks limit us to doing so for about three days at a time. After that, we must look for a campground with hookups. Even there, we avoid wasting electricity and water. The sustainable habits imposed during dry-camping serve us well when resources seem more plentiful, as well as when we go home again.