I burn everything... paper, cardboard, plastic. It all burns or gets smaller. (I try really hard to not bring anything that has that nasty thin aluminum foil packaging... cocoa packets are the hardest to find in waxed bags... often, the name brand is aluminized, or whatever, and the store brand is in the paper packet. Pretty much everything else is paper or plastic.) I try really hard to minimize trash though, and repackage into the more burnable waxed paper when possible.
You can't just "throw it in the fire" though... you have to burn it carefully. Paper and cardboard are pretty easy. It's the plastic stuff you have to watch. Let's take a ziplock bag that held a frozen steak for two days before I ate it... Over the course of a week, this is going to draw flies and at least inquisitive rodents, if not raccoons, possums, or bears due to the smell... I can rinse it, but it's still going to fester. Better to burn it says I. I take a stick and hold the bag over the fire until it melts, then lay the resulting glop on the top side of a log, pulling it out into the flames until it's gone... the stick then gets roasted into oblivion with frequent turning until all the plastic is gone. The log is similarly burned. You can't do this using pine or other trash wood, or in the rain... the fire must be HOT, like oak/maple/hickory hot... When I'm done, there is nothing left. Nothing. IF, when I'm cleaning up my pit before I leave, I find anything in the pit that isn't charcoal or ashes, it goes in a gallon ziplock reserved for trash... burned like that, it won't smell and draw critters, and I can burn it yet again the next night.
I also burn a lot of other people's trash that I find in fire pits and laying around campsites, and carry out aluminum foil, glass, cans, pull tabs, and bottle tops... friggin' pigs. Ranger Dawn at Low's showed me the size of her trash bag one time when we were traveling in the same direction for a few hours one day... I wasn't in any hurry and helped her dig out a firepit... she's a saint.
You can't just "throw it in the fire" though... you have to burn it carefully. Paper and cardboard are pretty easy. It's the plastic stuff you have to watch. Let's take a ziplock bag that held a frozen steak for two days before I ate it... Over the course of a week, this is going to draw flies and at least inquisitive rodents, if not raccoons, possums, or bears due to the smell... I can rinse it, but it's still going to fester. Better to burn it says I. I take a stick and hold the bag over the fire until it melts, then lay the resulting glop on the top side of a log, pulling it out into the flames until it's gone... the stick then gets roasted into oblivion with frequent turning until all the plastic is gone. The log is similarly burned. You can't do this using pine or other trash wood, or in the rain... the fire must be HOT, like oak/maple/hickory hot... When I'm done, there is nothing left. Nothing. IF, when I'm cleaning up my pit before I leave, I find anything in the pit that isn't charcoal or ashes, it goes in a gallon ziplock reserved for trash... burned like that, it won't smell and draw critters, and I can burn it yet again the next night.
I also burn a lot of other people's trash that I find in fire pits and laying around campsites, and carry out aluminum foil, glass, cans, pull tabs, and bottle tops... friggin' pigs. Ranger Dawn at Low's showed me the size of her trash bag one time when we were traveling in the same direction for a few hours one day... I wasn't in any hurry and helped her dig out a firepit... she's a saint.
