Sunday, January 5, 2014

Sporkless


Before we even made it through the gates our plastic free travel attempt was a fail. All my home made potions (toothpaste, hair treatments, coconut oil, essential oils etc) had to go in snap lock bags. This was super annoying, but in truth it's lucky because some did leak. I had my toothpaste and my dandruff potion in the same bag during the flight. Before touchdown I went to freshen up and brush my teeth. Something had leaked and I assumed it was my toothpaste, and so as not to waste any I scooped it up from the bottom of the bag. Of course it was my dandruff potion. Fail 1. Yuck. 

The rest of the journey was just as bad. I knew it would be. It was actually atrocious. All our food was wrapped in plastic, even the bread roll. Thinking we were doing the right thing we refrained from opening all the little packages hoping they would be saved for another traveller. In this process we realised that two of our three bamboo sporks were still at home in our kitchen draw. Fail 2. I was curious to know if our efforts to not open things were worth it, so I asked the staff. Alas EVERYTHING, opened or unopened, gets chucked after each meal. Sporkless and dejected we opened all of our meals, at least we were not wasting the food now. 

We also could not resist the lollies on take off and landing. Fail 3. 


We did have some wins though. Quincey turned down two Sponge Bob kids activity packs. I was very proud of him. He was impressed enough with unlimited access to screens. 

  

We also found it useful to ask staff to fill our stainless steel water bottles to avoid their plastic disposable ones. We refused the tea/coffee stirring pack - it occurred to me that you could BYO milk powder if you can stand the camping tea taste. This would avoid the tiny UHT milk packs. 

Our final fail was self imposed. We were tired, confused and exhausted. Hence the bottle of gin, complete with foam non breaky thing and an enormous snap lock bag. Things can only get better. 




3 comments:

  1. I eat the food because it will go in the bin anyway, but I agree all the individual wrapping is unnecessary. Some airlines are better than others - I remember Cathay Pacific have reusable plastic (melamine?) bowls and just use disposable plastic for the lids. And Singapore airlines have metal cutlery. My best success was with water too, and also hot drinks, using my KeepCup, which also doesn't spill everywhere like their shallow-but-oh-so-wide cups!

    Regarding the gin, I assume it was a litre. So you were buying in bulk - good work : )

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  2. Hi
    I am delighted to discover and explore your blog via the Sustainable Surburbia Linkup!
    I am enjoying reading your wonderful sustainable living blog posts.
    I blog about healthy, green and natural living at www.UrbanNaturale.com
    We have a lot of interests in common. Let's stay in touch.
    All the best, Deb

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  3. Goodness, imagine the landfill that must be created from airports, hadn't really thought about it till now. Keep up the great work, lots of good posts and info. :). Diane

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