What are a few ways we can go plastic-free during travel?

Ensure your toiletries are sustainable.

One of the major problems while traveling is that the toiletries that you use would mostly be made of plastics. How often have you bought miniature sachets and tubes of toothpaste, shampoos, conditioners, and portable deodorants for easy travel? Many of us do that and prefer it because you can throw it easily once the trip is over. However, imagine about 1 million people doing it every day and the waste generated just sums up to a staggering amount with this practice.

You can eliminate this aspect during travel. There are various sustainable alternatives to plastic toiletries during travel. Here is a list of the necessities you would carry and their environmentally friendly alternatives.

1. Toothpaste:

While toothpaste is really handy, there are sustainable alternatives to this in the form of tooth powder that comes in reusable bottles. You can also purchase zero-waste tooth tablets. These are self-foaming tooth tablets that you pop in your mouth with a bit of water such that it foams. One pill per brushing session would be ample and this is extremely handy too.

Then you can brush using your toothbrush and clean your teeth. This comes packed in glass bottles that you can reuse and causes no waste. It won’t leak or spill in your bag and is actually more convenient. All you have to do is carry this small bottle around and at the end of your travels, you can reuse the bottle or recycle it. Glass Recycling is often used for these small bottles and is sustainable.

2. Shampoo and Conditioners:

Companies have often advertised these bottles in extremely attractive shapes and colors. They now advertise miniature versions of the same thing for travel and people flock to buy the same! However, while it may seem convenient and cool for you to buy this, this generates so much plastic waste. People may say plastics recycling works here, it actually doesn’t. Again, you’d have issues with it spilling and leaking.

For travel purposes, rather than buying bottles, the more sustainable purchase that could be made is buying shampoo bars and conditioning bars. These last longer than bottles, are convenient to carry, and are more compact than bottles. Hence, it is an ideal carry item during travel. You can store it in a tin box and use it whenever needed.

3. Deodorant

This is a must-have as you never know when you’d have access to good bathing facilities during travel. However, the negative impacts of deos are quite numerous. The plastic nozzles, the encasings, the harmful aerosols that affect the environment all make it contribute to the ever-growing waste in the community.

Like shampoo and conditioner bars, there are deo bars that are long-lasting, compact, and can be stored conveniently in tin containers. This would reduce your waste generation during travel

4. Sustainable make-up items and hygiene products.

Switching to biodegradable cotton swabs, washable makeup removing cloth pads, and avoiding the use of plastic cotton swabs would be extremely helpful.

A majority of them have also now switched from using plastic pads to washable menstrual pads or menstrual cups. This cuts down a huge chunk of waste generated and benefits the world. While traveling, in case you do not find segregated waste bins, you can dispose of these without much guilt. This would not have been the case if you had plastics, hence this step is necessary and important.

Also, if you stay in hotels or lodges, opt out of the mini toiletries that they provide. They use a lot of plastic and avoiding their use helps in cutting back demand. If even out of 50,000 people, 3000 people did this, a huge amount of waste produced would be eliminated. Buying makeup should be kept in mind with cosmetics recycling principles.