Most of us know that littering is bad, right? But most of us will just think of it as being unsightly, but in the right location it can be life-changing.

Well, in this case, it was a life-changing event for the tiny microbes and insects that call Carlsbad Caverns their home. A bag of Cheetos was dropped in the cave and could have been there a day or two or maybe just hours, but those salty morsels of processed corn made soft by thick humidity triggered the growth of mold on the cavern floor and on nearby cave formations.

“To the ecosystem of the cave it had a huge impact,” the park noted in a social media post, explaining that cave crickets, mites, spiders and flies soon organized to eat and disperse the foreign mess, essentially spreading the contamination.

The bright orange bag was spotted off trail by a ranger during one of the regular sweeps that park staff make through the “Big Room,” the largest single cave chamber by volume in North America, at the end of each day. They are looking for straggling visitors and any litter or other waste that might have been left behind on the paved trail.

The Park Rangers have special clean-up kits can include gloves, trash bags, water, bleach mixtures for decontamination, vacuums and even bamboo toothbrushes and tweezers for those hard-to-reach spots.

After the Cheetos bag was discovered in July, cave specialists at the park settled on the best way to clean it up. Most of the mess was scooped up, and a toothbrush was used to remove rings of mold and fungi that had spread to nearby cave formations. It was a 20-minute job.

The balance between allowing people to have access to the natural beauty and keeping it pristine as nature intended is, as you would expect, difficult. Pleas to treat the caverns with respect are plastered on signs throughout the park, rangers give orientations to visitors before they go underground, and reminders of the do’s and don’ts are printed on the back of each ticket stub. But sometimes people just don't feel vested in protecting the environment.

So please, as someone who spends a lot of time outdoors and enjoying nature, practice the basic principals of “Leave No Trace” and respect the world, leave it better than you found it, and let others who follow in your footsteps to experience the same majestic beauty the same way you see it.