Born in a real Black Rock City camp kitchen. Gifted โ never sold โ to any camp or org that wants it.
Leaving No Trace is the principle burners live hardest โ we crawl the playa for sequins and zip-tie clippings. But the heaviest trace a camp leaves was never MOOP. It's food: bought in bulk, cooked for headcounts that changed, discovered warm and unsorted at teardown, and driven to a landfill where it becomes methane.
WASTE TRACE moves the principle upstream. It follows food from menu to meal, projects what will be left days before teardown, and turns that knowledge into a different next meal, a transfer to a neighboring camp, or a cold-chain recovery run to people who can use it. Waste prevented, not managed.
At Black Rock City 2026, the Terrible Turtles Camp kitchen ran its whole inventory through TRACE โ an AI agent living in the camp's group chat. Any camper could just ask it things.
Fifty-five pounds that can become soup for a neighboring camp instead of landfill. That is the entire idea, in one vegetable.
A camp with a spreadsheet and a phone can run it. The AI agent just makes it faster.
Purchases and receipts go in โ the shopping run becomes data the moment it hits the chat.
Daily production draws down live inventory. The kitchen always knows what's on hand.
The system projects what will be left at end of event โ while there's still time to act.
Surplus is flagged days early: change the next meal, or mark it for transfer.
Flagged food moves โ camp-to-camp on playa, or by cold chain to community partners after.
wastetrace.org is the independent, nonprofit home of the food loop for Burning Man camps, Regionals, and burner orgs. No fees, no tiers, no upsell, no tokens, nothing for sale โ on playa or off. If your camp wants the loop, it's yours.
The food-loop agent joins your camp's group chat and runs your kitchen ledger โ the same way it ran ours at BRC 2026.
Open-source replication kit: field guide, laminated kitchen flow cards, data schemas, board templates.
The playbook deliberately works with a spreadsheet and a phone. The agent is an accelerant, not a dependency.
Our camp-ops agent โ crew, shifts, supplies, meeting notes โ is part of the same gift for camps that want the full pattern.
Want the loop for your camp or org? Ask TRACEY ๐ฃ โ the family's communicator โ in the chat at the bottom right, or write [email protected]
We're in outreach to support orgs and camps at any Regional burn. Honest status, no overclaims:
Full-scale run with our neighboring camps โ Naked Heart, Cold Yogis, Enthios, and more.
home turfSanta Cruz's official Regional (Luminous Mycelium). First deployment window after the build.
outreach underwayUtah and San Diego's official Regionals โ 2027 deployment conversations.
outreach underwayThe official Asia Regional (Senki Yagyo). Our agents offered as a gift to any camp that would like them.
gift offered"Outreach underway" means exactly that โ letters written, conversations open, nothing claimed that hasn't happened. When a burn says yes, this page will say so.
TRACE's marketplace door in the Agent สปOhana โ where the working system and its documentation live.
marketplaceSame TRACE, different doors: over there, agents can be hired for work in the wider world. Here โ for burns, camps, and burner orgs โ the same agent is a gift, and always will be. That's the whole point of this domain.