FILE: Dusk settles on the Playa during Burning Man 2025.

In a recent blog post, the Burning Man Project unveiled the most common types of trash — referred to as MOOP, or Matter Out of Place — left behind by festivalgoers in 2025. The worst offender? Lag bolts, the coarsely threaded screws that some Burners drill into Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to secure their canopies and tents. 

Volunteers found 2,304 lag bolts, tent stakes and pieces of rebar embedded in the hardened mud this year, an increase from 1,508 in 2024.

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For three years straight, lag bolts have been the most common form of MOOP. Other common items in 2025 included miscellaneous plastic debris (volunteers found 1,204 instances) and pieces of cardboard and paper (826 instances). 

“Lag bolts are highly effective for anchoring objects into the playa,” playa restoration leader DA, the author of the blog post, writes. “But when screwed flush into — or below — the surface, they disappear into the dust. Overlooked, they become both a........

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