Everything you carry in has to leave with you or go into a facility built for it. That is the whole rule, and the federal regulations say it in almost those words. This page is the rules and planning half of the dump station question. For the other half, where the stations actually are and how to find one on your route, see our dump stations and fresh water guide, which covers the categories of place that reliably have them.
Before any of it: where you may dump, and whether burial is allowed at all, is set locally and posted locally. Where a sign, a district order, or a ranger says something different from this page, they win.
What the regulations actually say
Two regulations cover almost every dispersed campsite in the country.
On BLM land, 43 CFR 8365.1-1 prohibits, among other things, draining sewage or petroleum products or dumping refuse or waste other than wash water from any trailer or other vehicle except in places or receptacles provided for that purpose. The same section prohibits polluting or contaminating water supplies or water used for human consumption, and disposing of cans, bottles, and other trash except in designated places or receptacles. It opens by asking that, whenever practicable, visitors pack their trash for disposal at home.
On Forest Service land, 36 CFR 261.11 prohibits failing to dispose of all garbage, including any paper, can, bottle, sewage, waste water or material, or rubbish, either by removal from the site or area or by depositing it into receptacles or at places provided for such purposes. It separately prohibits placing in or near a stream, lake, or other water any substance which does or may pollute it, and prohibits leaving refuse, debris, or litter in an exposed or unsanitary condition.
Read the BLM wording carefully, because it is the source of a lot of confident nonsense. The phrase is “waste other than wash water.” People take that as blanket permission to dump a grey tank on the dirt. It is not. It is a narrow carve-out for wash water, and it does not override the prohibition on contaminating water supplies, or a local order, or a posted sign, and it does not apply on Forest Service land at all, where waste water is named explicitly in the list of things you must remove or deposit at a provided facility. A grey tank that has run through a kitchen sink is carrying food solids and grease, and it behaves nothing like a basin of rinse water.
The practical rule that keeps you legal everywhere: tanks go to a dump station.
Human waste when there is no toilet
Different rule, different answer. Tanks are one problem, and going to the bathroom on public land is another.
BLM’s camping guidance asks dispersed campers to use a portable toilet or pack out waste where possible, and says that in some locations you bury waste 6 to 8 inches deep. The Leave No Trace standard the Park Service publishes matches: deposit solid human waste in catholes dug 6 to 8 inches deep, at least 200 feet from water, camp, and trails.
Note the conditional in the BLM wording. Burial is allowed in some locations, not all. High-use corridors, desert areas where nothing decomposes, and river drainages increasingly require pack-out with no burial option, and portable toilet systems are the standard answer there. Check the district before you rely on a shovel.
The same 200 foot figure governs dishwater. Leave No Trace asks you to carry water 200 feet from streams or lakes and use small amounts of biodegradable soap. BLM asks dispersed campers to stay at least 200 feet from lakes, rivers, and streams in the first place.
Plan around the tank that fills first
You will head to town when one tank hits its limit, and it is worth knowing which one before you leave.
The grey tank is usually it. Nearly all the water you draw from fresh arrives in grey within a minute, minus what you drink and cook. A 2027 Airstream Flying Cloud 30FB Bunk lists 53 gallons fresh, 40 grey, and a 35 gallon waste tank. Run 53 gallons of fresh through it and roughly 45 of them are heading into a 40 gallon grey tank, so grey fills before fresh empties.
It is not universal. A 2025 Jay Flight SLX 197MBW lists 30 gallons fresh against 40 grey and 40 black, and on that trailer the fresh tank governs. Look up your own model’s numbers instead of assuming. The full arithmetic on daily use is in our water management guide.
Black tanks generally outlast both, which is why the trip usually ends over dishwater rather than the toilet.
What it costs, and what the fee actually buys
There is no national fee schedule for dump stations, and no single directory of them. The verified examples we could confirm in July 2026 cluster in a narrow band:
- Zion National Park: 5 dollars for a single use of the water fill and sanitary dump station at Watchman Campground. Campers already holding a reservation do not pay separately.
- BLM Paxson Lake Campground, Alaska: 10 dollars for non-campers. The site also has potable water.
- Olympic National Park: 10 dollars per use at Fairholme, Kalaloch, Mora, and Sol Duc.
Two patterns worth carrying. First, the reliable structure is free or included for overnight guests and a modest fee for everyone else, so if you are booking a campground night anyway, stack the dump onto it. Second, a lot of campgrounds have neither a dump station nor water. Olympic lists nine campgrounds with no dump station at all, and five of those also have no potable water. Do not drive to a campground assuming both are there.
Carry small bills. Some of these are honor boxes.
Extending your time out, and the honest weight of it
Two things stretch a stay, and both have costs people underplay.
Cutting grey water at the source. A dishpan instead of a running tap, wiping plates before washing, catching the cold water that runs while you wait for hot. This is free, and it is the higher-return option.
A portable waste tote. A tote lets you drain grey or black into a wheeled tank, drive it to a station, and stay put. It works, and here is the part the product pages skip: a Camco Rhino 15 gallon tote weighs 33 pounds empty, and water weighs 8.329 pounds per gallon at 70°F (USGS). Fill it and you are moving roughly 158 pounds, by hand, onto a hitch or into a truck bed. On pavement at a dump station that is fine. On a rutted forest road at a site where you had to unhitch first, it is a genuinely bad afternoon.
Our read: a tote earns its space if you sit in one spot for a week or more and have a vehicle you can detach. For weekend trips, shorter showers do the same job for nothing.
The habits that keep these places open
Dump only at a station. Pay the posted fee. Rinse down, cap off, and do not linger at a busy station. Never fill a drinking water tank from the non-potable hose used to rinse the sewer connection: those two spigots are kept separate on purpose.
And take everything else with you. BLM asks you to take all trash and belongings, and 43 CFR 8365.1-2 caps unattended personal property at 10 days on public lands. Sites get gated after they get trashed, and the sequence is always the same.
If you are picking ground for the first time, choosing a site covers the setbacks and drainage checks that make the waste question easier, and your first night covers what to sort out before you leave pavement.
Sources
- 43 CFR 8365.1-1 Sanitation and 8365.1-2 Occupancy and use (BLM rules of conduct), GPO
- 36 CFR 261.11 Sanitation (Forest Service prohibitions), GPO
- BLM: Camping on Public Lands (human waste, trash, setbacks)
- National Park Service: Leave No Trace Seven Principles (catholes, dishwater)
- Recreation.gov: Watchman Dump Station Fee for Non-Campers, Zion National Park
- BLM: Paxson Lake Campground (dump station fee, potable water)
- Olympic National Park: Camping (dump station and potable water by campground)
- Camco Rhino Tote Tank, 15 gallon (capacity and empty weight)
- USGS Water Science School: Water Density (weight of a gallon of water)
- Airstream Flying Cloud specifications (tank capacities)
- Jayco Jay Flight SLX 197MBW specifications (tank capacities)