Fuel Cylinder recycling

how to Reduce the impact of
single-use

 
 

We’ve all been there before -- you’re in the middle of cooking on your camp stove, run out of gas, and quickly replace it with a brand new gas cylinder. But, what do you do with the empty cylinder? Many are unaware of the resources available to recycle these empty cylinders and as a consequence are more frequently thrown away. Cylinders then make their way to a landfill, where they take up 3.3 million cubic feet of landfill space each year.

Yosemite National Park is on a mission to reduce the impact of single-use gas containers by offering convenient, reusable options, as well as disposal sites for cylinders to be recycled.

HOW BIG OF A PROBLEM ARE SINGLE-USE GAS CYLINDERS IN YOSEMITE?

In North America alone, 40 million gas cylinders are sold each year. Yosemite National Park currently collects an average of 24,000 of those each year from NPS campgrounds.

Because used fuel cylinders are classified as hazardous waste, they’re expensive to store, transport, and recycle properly.

What you can do to help

We’ve teamed up with the National Park Service and Yosemite Hospitality to offer two easy solutions:

 

Option A:

Purchase a reusable container at The Village Store, Curry Village Gift Shop, Mountain Shop, Wawona Store, or El Portal Market. 

Here’s how the propane exchange works: 

  1. Purchase a Little Kamper cylinder.

  2. Use up the fuel.

  3. Bring back the cylinder to any store that participates in the Little Kamper exchange program.

  4. Trade in your empty cylinder for a full one at a lower price.

By taking part in these small actions, you can help keep these hazardous materials out of our local landfill when visiting our beloved park.

Option B:

Find a gas cylinder disposal site and we’ll recycle them for you (map coming soon).

  • Upper Pines (9 collection sites)

  • Lower Pines (5 collection sites)

  • North Pines (2 collection sites)

  • Hodgdon Campground (1 collection site)

  • Camp 4 (2 collection sites)

  • Tuolumne Meadows Campground (5 collection sites)

  • Housekeeping Camp warehouse during hours of operation (open summer months: 8am - 11am and 4:30pm-9:30pm); give to warehouse attendant

  • Yosemite Hospitality Warehouse: Recycling Department, during hours of operation (Summer months: Mon-Fri, 7:30 am-4 pm); give to working recycling attendant

  • Recycling Center in Yosemite Village, during hours of operation (Summer months: Tue-Sat, 12:30 pm-5 pm); give to working recycling attendant

 

Get involved & volunteer

take your efforts to the next level

Without your support, we wouldn’t be able to increase waste diversion from our local landfill and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

Sign up for one of our volunteer events to help sort and track the single-use gas cylinders that are collected from our campgrounds. 

To get involved -- contact Tina Goehring, Zero Landfill & Sustainability Coordinator: tgoehring@yosemite.org.

Yosemite Zero Landfill Initiative: Reusable Propane Cylinders

Single-use propane cylinders are classified as hazardous waste. They’re costly to collect, store, transport and recycle, and they often end up in the trash. Around 24,000 used-up cylinders are collected in recycling areas in Yosemite each year, and an unknown number are thrown out. At Yosemite Conservancy, our Zero Landfill and Sustainability Coordinator is working to change that — in collaboration with the National Park Service, Yosemite Hospitality, ZLI leaders and other partners. This effort to reduce improper disposal of single-use propane cylinders will help move Yosemite National Park toward zero-waste status. This project is made possible in part by a grant from the National Park Foundation through the generous support of Subaru of America.