We all grew up making paper airplanes and from time to time, we’d manage to throw what we believed was the perfect throw. Maybe you climbed to the top floor of a building to see how far you could get your creation to float. Maybe you bought ‘how to build the best paper airplane’ books. This guy climbed an entire mountain, just to throw a paper airplane off the top of it. It’s pretty epic, but paper, despite being biodegradable, should not just be thrown into the wilderness.
The guy who threw the airplane, PaperTrailBoys on YouTube, states that because paper degrades, all will be well. While I’m sure he meant well, that isn’t quite true. Paper, and all other biodegradable garbage, should always be carried out of the wilderness and properly disposed of.
Paper is biodegradable, yes. In many places, it can decompose in 2-6 weeks. But it can also take much longer than that, especially when it’s a drier or higher altitude climate. Up to several months long, in fact, and animals aren’t likely to eat it during that time. Plus, most paper can be recycled up to six times, so while it might not do a ton of damage while it’s sitting on the ground, it could’ve been turned into something else, for someone else, even if it was already turned into a paper airplane.
Plus, litter damages the aesthetic of the outdoors, even if it’s biodegradable. Have you ever come upon an apple core in the middle of the wilderness, left by some hiker who came by a few days before you? Do you think ‘oh look, that’s biodegradable!’, or do you think ‘ew, someone left their trash here.’ Just because it will decompose in a few weeks, doesn’t mean it won’t damage someone’s experience in a few days.