Ladies and gents, citizens of Tankwa Town – your 2014 MOOP Report is here!

First though, some info before we get into the nitty gritty. With the MOOP map in its 2nd year, we thought we’d answer a few FAQ’s and distribute the high fives and naughty spanks.  As always we also want to thank those super MOOP ninjas who never say die, even at 4 in the morning.  You put the party back in participate.

How do we do the MOOP map?
After you lovely people have left the desert and are braving the R355 (and responsibly recycling your trash) this is how your dearly beloved diehard desert rats walk the entire city grid, checking for MOOP:
1) Standing in a line, about arm length apart, with a line boss and scribe in tow, we start at 2ish on the town grid.
2) Walking slowly forward we scrutinise the ground, picking up everything that does not belong in the Tankwa.  When we find anything that will take longer than five minutes to clean, or needs special tools (like an open fire, or a large oil spill) we drop a cone on the spot. Special forces then come behind us and take care of what we found.
3) After every camp or block we then get a rating from everyone who walked the line, getting a group consensus (it’s never just one person’s opinion).  We do the town grid first, ending with walking the actual Binnekring from Mighty Bench to Leonardo’s Lounge and the dreaded bush line.  It takes about 10 days all in all – ten days of walking and picking up shit in the sun and the wind, cold or hot, from sunrise to sunset.

Terms of reference:
What is Micro MOOP? Stompies (cigarette butts), glowstick connecters, bottle caps, pieces of strings, cable ties…the list goes on.

And Macro MOOP? Bags of garbage (even double bagged), bricks, sand bags, rebar, tents, mattresses, cooler boxes with rotting food in them…you get the picture.

What are MOOP MUPPET MOVES that require specific mention?
This year there was a camp that left a ton of peach pips on the ground.  We’re not just using words here – it was literally a ton. We had to make screens to filter them through the sand (think epic amount of effort by the whole team) because said camp did not lay down a lining. This is a classic example of a MOOP muppet move.  We know you want your camp to look pretty, we do, but don’t be a muppet about it.

DIY MOOPing – Get radically self-reliant!
How to lead a line sweep:  A forward moving line-up of moopers side-by-side and arms width apart, a quick and efficient community effort for scanning and picking up Matter Out Of Place over a given area of Binnekring surface such as a camp or an art installation etc..
Step 1: Line up!  A bunch of people standing shoulder to shoulder in a line preparing to spread out,
Step 2: Spread Out!  Now spread your arms in a line in preparation for walking the line.
Step3: MOOP on! Sweep the Binnekring looking for MOOP and cleaning it up.

Here’s your 2014 MOOP map! (want to see a larger version? Click it.)

2014 General Report
The Mighty MOOP March was led by the delightful Judy bus, with funky tunes and fun MC’ing by Raphael on the Saturday at 2pm. Gathering a line of MOOPers, giving out over 150 orange MOOP bags, we flooded the Binnekring and The Purple Wedding. We had fun and we MOOPED the Binnekring all the way.  It was notably cleaner than last year – a big shout out to all you Burners out there, we’re making great progress so if you MOOPed as you went, thank you, you rock!

In two more areas there were a marked improvement at this year’s burn:
– Firstly all of the registered artists cleaned up their sites so that we found no trace of them when we swept the Binnekring and beyond with the MOOP lines.  Well done!
– Secondly we had much less evidence of open fires in the town grid this year. Yes, there were still some shockers with a week’s worth of bones and coals in there! But there were a lot less.
Remember: the reason we do this is to reduce the burn scars we leave behind and also to create less fire hazards in the suburbs.

Next let’s talk dancefloors: we all know what it’s like, it’s late, you’ve been dancing the whole day and it’s very hard to remember that this is not a club with the music pumping and the vibe going.  But this is the burn, where we practice radical self-reliance, not “someone else will clean up after me”. Have your MOOP bag with you – love the desert by LEAVING NO TRACE.
The burbs of deep 10ish, were unfortunately riddled by macro MOOP this year.  This is not a “Ag, screw it, I’ll leave my trash in a bag for others to deal with” event. Pack it in, pack it out, play and pack it back in again! All of it.

There was also a high incidence of broken car windows.  We cannot know what caused this (maybe some of you have feedback for us? Send it to [email protected]), but it really takes a long time to pick up little tiny pieces of glass. If it is a case of locked in car keys, maybe make a communal car key bag for the camp that can be kept in a safe place? If it’s a case of thievery, we want to know about it, so we can keep a look out.  Either way, we encourage communication in all its forms.

The Leave No Trace team and DPW would like to thank those of us who left those beautiful green areas and encourage the rest to do better. This is our AfrikaBurn and we do this because we love it. Next year, let’s aim for an even cleaner site where there really is no trace!

WANT DETAILS ON WHAT WAS FOUND WHERE? Here we go:
Click here for the 2014 MOOP Details spreadsheet.

UPDATE 1:
We’ve had some great discussions with some camps who’ve raised concerns that their ratings were incorrect due to various factors such as drive-by moopings and wind-blown debris. It’s very encouraging to see so many people taking this aspect of their AfrikaBurn experience to heart, thank you all! Those changes are now reflected on the map you see above.

UPDATE 2: DRIVE-BY MOOPINGS!
See the blue areas on the map? They’re a new category: ‘drive-by mooping’ has reared its ugly head, and the victims are gatvol because it often means clean camps gets a kak red rating on the map. That screws with future placement. Please, don’t dump your trash on other people’s campsites before leaving – and don’t let anyone else dump on sites in your area. Be a good neighbour: meet people in your hood and agree to keep an eye on each other’s patch. We’re a community – look out for each other.

Thanks to all who’ve stepped up and engaged our team, we appreciate the input and as always are available to discuss their concerns in order to improve the system we use to rate sites. Never forget – the only good system is a sound system!

(words: Sonica Spirit, graphics: Diaan Em)