Tasmania Parks and Wildlife wilderness rangers, like Olivia Hickey, are putting in a special effort to push the use of poo pots.
"We're all carrying them with us and trying to promote them this season," she said.
Poo pots and poo tubes are sealable containers for transporting human waste from sensitive wilderness areas back to toilets.
And wilderness rangers are actively encouraging their use because of the "unprecedented" amount of human poo they have been seeing in remote places.
Ms Hickey said the problem has increased since the dramatic rise in "less educated" bushwalkers in Tasmania in recent years.
"People are getting into bushwalking but don't know how to toilet properly," she said.
Part of her job is teaching them about bush toileting techniques.
"The gold standard of waste in the bush is now a poo pot."
The poo problem
The question of how best to toilet in the wilderness is not new.
The state's Parks and Wildlife Service has, for many years, advised walkers far from toilets to dispose of their poo by burying it in a hole at least 15 centimetres deep, at least 100 metres from water courses and campsites.
It means people need to carry a hiking shovel.
But research from the field shows many choose not to.
"[For example,] in the Western Arthurs and at Lake Rhona, only 50 per cent of groups are carrying a shovel," Ms Hickey said.
"Which is really scary because that is an indication that people don't know how to toilet in the bush."
She said when asked about not carrying shovels, people often said they would use a stick or a walking pole instead.
"But sticks and walking poles cannot dig holes ... you can't get 15 centimetres down anywhere in Tasmania with a stick or a walking pole," she said.
"[Even] with a shovel, you've got to be committed and consider pre-digging holes, so you know where you'll be going and have time to dig a good hole."
Ms Hickey said this was something relatively few walkers were doing, with many burying their waste badly or not at all, leaving rangers to pick up after them.
"We go along and pick those [poos] up and take them back to a toilet," she said.
She and her colleagues find faeces near rivers, lakes, streams, and campsites and even next to toilets.
"Whether people think [the toilets] are smelly or weird, or they don't know how to use them, or they can't be bothered, who knows what's going on?"
Need to treat the water
Visitor numbers to Tasmania and its remote areas have been rising.
"Looking at Tourism Tasmania numbers, the problem is that bushwalking in Tassie is increasing exponentially," Ms Hickey said.
"We're having the highest-recorded numbers in places like Mt Anne and the Western Arthurs and up into the Walls [of Jerusalem] now than we've ever had."
And many more humans in Tasmania's wilderness means much more human poo causing increasing aesthetic, environmental, and human health problems.
"It doesn't take much for anyone to go for a walk anywhere and see the impact of people not doing the right thing when it comes to toileting," Ms Hickey said.
"[And] one of the things we've seen, which is a direct result ... is gastro starting to appear on the walking tracks," Ms Hickey said.
"So, I would now never not treat my water at Lake Rhona, in the Western Arthurs, Mt Anne, or the Walls of Jerusalem, where in the past we've not had to.
"There is a measurable difference now from people not doing the right thing."
Presenting the poo pot
The solution that Ms Hickey and the other wilderness rangers actively promote is the poo pot.
"A poo pot is basically a non-collapsible container you can carry waste in," Ms Hickey said.
"The poo pots we [rangers] carry can actually fit into the water bottle pocket of your pack, which is great because it's not going inside your pack," she said.
Poo tubes, in contrast, are longer and often made out of a PVC pipe with a secured bottom and a screw top.
But both are used the same way, with the technique involving corn starch bags.
"You poo into a corn starch bag, then you squash all the air out of the bag and put it into the poo pot," Ms Hickey said.
"[In there] it can't get squashed and you can't smell it, and then you can carry it."
The walker then transports their poo pot to a toilet, the nearest of which is often a Parks-installed loo.
"You put the corn starch bags into the toilet ... [and Parks is] happy for them to go in there because they biodegrade so quickly.
"Then that waste can get flown out."
Ms Hickey said Parks was asking people to carry poo pots on all walks of up to two days long, and on longer walks to use toilets or the poo-burial practice at campsites, and poo pots for "emergency poos" in between.
Toilets vs poo pots
Ms Hickey said some people believe the "poo problem" should be addressed by installing more toilets.
"Everyone says, 'Just put a toilet in if there's a toileting problem'," she said.
But adding a toilet to an area draws more people to it and creates a camping hub, she said.
"And a lot of areas can't sustain those visitor numbers."
She said it was also expensive to install toilets in remote areas and fly the waste back to civilisation.
"It's about $3,000 an hour to pay for a helicopter to remove peoples' poo," she said.
And many Parks users already complain about the cost of Parks passes, Ms Hickey said.
To help keep those prices down, the organisation is now selling poo pots at some of its visitor centres including the Mt Field Visitor Centre.
It is also encouraging people to make their own.
"If you google how to make a poo pot, there's heaps of information out there, particularly from the [United] States," Ms Hickey said.
Poo pots pass pub test
Bushwalkers in Tasmania who know what they are doing are already carrying poo pots, Ms Hickey said.
And in other places around the world poo pots are the norm.
"There's one place in the States that issues poo tubes to walkers, and [the US National Park Service] weighs them when they come back in, and people get fined if they're not carrying poo," she said.
Ms Hickey said she expected, at first, that the bushwalkers she spoke to about poo pots would greatly resist the idea of bagging up and carrying their poo.
But overall, the reception of poo pots has been "really positive", which she has found "quite exciting".
"When they meet us and we do a demonstration and we demystify poo a bit and we all laugh, people really aren't that scared and they actually think it's a great idea.
"[And] it's not actually that scary ... [especially] if you've ever picked up a dog poo," she said.
Ms Hickey suggested it was hard to argue with the logic of removing your waste from a wilderness area.
"We all go bushwalking because we enjoy these beautiful places," she said.
"So it's trying to tap into this idea of leaving it as you find it, so in 50 years your kids … can have the same experiences we do.
"I like to say every single poo makes a difference — if you carry out your poo, it makes a difference to that place."