Frequently Asked Questions
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It’s pretty simple – Little Kamper works just like 20 lb propane BBQ cylinder exchange.
You buy a cylinder, prefilled and ready to go for $21.99. When you need more propane, you take your used Little Kamper cylinder back to one of our retailers and turn it in to receive a $10.00 discount on your replacement cylinder. The used cylinders get sent back to us for inspection, cleaning, refilling and shipping back out to our retailers.
In the process, we reduce 1 lb propane cylinder waste and save our parks, campgrounds, and American taxpayers a considerable amount of money. We also do Mother Nature a huge favor in the process.
No – Little Kamper does not collect deposits. The discount you receive when you return a cylinder only applies towards a Little Kamper exchange transaction. There is no deposit to recover or cash value for turning in a Little Kamper cylinder.
Get this—dark green single-use cylinders are more expensive to recover, transport, and recycle than they are to buy. That means that millions of those cylinders end up in landfills every year. And they cost taxpayers a lot of money.
Yes, they’re made of recyclable materials. But there are two BIG problems with the idea of recycling single-use propane tanks.
Many of the used cylinders are thrown away with measurable amounts of liquid propane inside. This makes them hazardous waste when collected as trash. You can’t crush a propane tank because that leftover fuel can cause explosions or fires that lead to injuries and expensive equipment damage. That’s why they’re classified as hazardous waste, which makes them expensive to recycle.
Also, they’re often discarded at campgrounds and parks that end up paying for their collection, transportation, and disposal. This puts a strain on our parks funds and resources.
Quite often, more than they cost to buy. Crazy, right?
The only safe, proper way to recycle a tank is to remove any leftover liquid propane so the tank can be safely punctured. It’s a time-consuming process than involves hazardous manual labor. The total cost of the process depends on the distance the cylinder has to travel from recovery to recycling but the cost is between $3.00-$8.00. And the scrap value of dark green 1 lb cylinder is about $0.10 so it’s not a cost-effective practice.
Little Kamper pays for the recovery, transportation and recycling of our cylinders. Our program features reuse to reduce waste and recycling when a cylinder reaches the end of it’s life cycle. Little Kamper even pays to recover our cylinders from parks, campgrounds, and waste transfer facilities.
That’s why our exchange program is so important. Instead of paying to recycle old single-use tanks, parks can focus their money where it matters—maintaining and caring for our natural world.
Sadly, because the life cycle cost of that container is not the responsibility of the company that makes millions of dollars every year manufacturing the dark green cylinders. They pocket the profit from the product and pass along the cost of their waste stream. But now, there are states all over the country that are passing legislation to force the manufacturer to accept financial responsibility for the cost of recycling their cylinder. That change is long overdue.
That’s the most important question of all.
Every Little Kamper exchange equals one less tank thrown away. Our exchange program brings our cylinders back through our retailers to our production center for inspection, cleaning, and refilling.
Over the course of a ten year period, one Little Kamper tank can keep more than 30 dark green, single-use tanks out of landfill!