Discarding Your Toilet Paper
The long-standing recommendation was to bury used toilet paper in the cathole along with the waste, or to burn it in a campfire. But conventional wisdom now recommends to carry it out with you because often-times it takes longer for the paper to decompose than the actual waste does, and burning it increases the risk of forest fires.
Put the trash in one sealable plastic bags, and then wrap that in another for double protection. You also can use an old water bottle to store the sealed baggie to be extra safe.
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The double-bagging method should also be used to carry out all feminine hygiene products, rather than trying to bury or burn them.
Some areas require that you pack out used toilet paper, such as desert environments like Grand Canyon National Park, where there isn't enough moisture in the soil for toilet paper to decompose.
Some high-traffic areas—Mount Rainier and Mount Whitney, for example—are even more restrictive, requiring you to pack out all your waste, not just toilet paper. Since Whitney is mostly bedrock, there just isn't enough soil for the volume of hikers to be able to bury all their waste when pooping outside.
In those cases, hikers need to travel with pack-out kits or "WAG bags" (Waste Alleviation and Gelling), in which you spread an inner bag on the ground to capture your output, seal the bag, and then seal it again in an outer bag. The kits contain a powder that turns into an odor-absorbing gel when water or urine is added, and are available through several manufacturers.
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