Yellowstone's Thermal Pools See Record Trash Haul: Geology Team Has Collected More Than 23,000 Pieces of Trash and Natural Items by Early October; Old Faithful and Midway Geyser Basin Hardest Hit
YELLOWSTONE — A team at Yellowstone National Park has collected over 23,000 pieces of trash and natural items from geysers, hot springs, boardwalks and surrounding areas as of early October, a record-setting year for the team's trash collection, the New York Post reported, citing National Geographic. Aside from paper and plastic debris, the Yellowstone Geology Program retrieved roughly 10,700 rocks and sticks, more than 360 hats and plenty of camera lens caps, hair ties and pacifiers. Other quirky finds included five AirPods, three Delta flight pins and a singular Uno card, as well as dental retainers and rubber ducks.
The park's geology team manages the collection and is trained in safe hydrothermal navigation practices, according to the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. In 2025, Yellowstone welcomed over 4.7 million visitors, according to the National Park Service; with such a large volume of people, debris builds up especially in high-traffic areas like Old Faithful and the Midway Geyser Basin. "We believe that most of those are accidental," Margery Price, a physical science technician with the Yellowstone National Park Geology Program, told National Geographic, referring to garbage possibly deposited unintentionally and swept away by strong winds.
According to the observatory, any foreign material can harm a hydrothermal feature, either by clogging the water supply, polluting the water or blocking its runoff channel; even natural materials like rocks and sticks need to be removed because they can cause clogging. Chemicals from microplastics can enter the water and affect the microbes that give the pools their distinctive hues. The report also noted that the famous Morning Glory Pool changed color in the 20th century due to trash and foreign items tossed in by visitors: the debris cooled the water temperature and allowed orange and yellow-colored bacteria to grow, altering the spring's clear blue appearance. Staff called the pool the "garbage can" beginning in the 1950s, according to the observatory. Park rangers partially drained Morning Glory in the 1970s to extract debris, but its original color did not fully return.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：黄石国家公园老忠实泉一带的地热区（资料图）。照片：Dietmar Rabich，CC BY-SA 4.0，经维基共享资源。 / The geothermal area around Old Faithful Geyser in Yellowstone National Park (file photo). Photo: Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
