How To Pack A Sustainable Travel Kit
Many of us traveling have witnessed the growing amount of plastic waste polluting our oceans and the environment. Even if your holiday destinations have been in places, where the beaches are cleaned from all the trash, it is hard to avoid seeing the photos of dead animals with their stomach full of trash or beaches covered with plastic. The problem is real. We hope that we can help you travel more sustainable with this guide on How To Pack A Sustainable Travel Kit.
People who travel are privileged in a way, as we have the opportunity to go and experience all the beautiful places our world has to offer. We feel that with that privilege comes responsibility – we should also do our best to preserve that beautiful and fragile nature of our world.
We often travel to less-developed countries to enjoy the cheap prices and amazing nature. But what we should also acknowledge is that most of those countries don´t have working recycling systems. The waste we leave behind might end up being some that plastic washed up in the shore one day.
This is the reason why we have gathered together a guide on how to pack sustainably and plastic-free. We hope to make it easy for every one of us to make those little changes to live and travel more sustainably. Here are some every-day items to collect into your travel kit!
Replace the plastic
Plastic is everywhere – even in places where it is completely unnecessary. An every day essential and one of the easiest products to replace with a plastic-free option is a toothbrush. Bamboo is a great sustainable material to replace plastic products and a toothbrush is no exception in that. The Humble Co. is a company with green values making bamboo toothbrushes and oral hygiene products. The make products like bamboo toothbrush cases and dental floss. They also make cotton swipes with a bamboo handle that is 100% biodegradable!
Shower gel and shampoo bottles create a huge amount of waste every year. These products are easily replaced with soap bars. Shampoo bars and soap bars leave no waste at all and you can find many different options for different hair and skin types.
There are multiple other cosmetics that you can easily replace with plastic-free options, such as deodorants (check out deodorant rock or balm) and make-up.
Invest in reusable products
Buyng a plastic single-use product might feel like a cheaper option at the moment of purchase. In the long term they end up costing you and the environment more than a sustainable and reusable product.
One of the best purchases last year for us was a metal razor. It is made completely out of metal so it is zero-waste as the blades can be recycled when they go bad. They do stay sharp longer than the regular blades.
If the metal razor is our new favorite, a good old trusty for years for both of us has been the period cup. The period cup has not only saved us loads of money. It also makes us not have to worry about the plastic waste that our periods would otherwise leave behind every month.
Luckily all of the reusable products don´t have to be expensive – some of them you can even make yourself! Whereas you can replace your plastic cotton swipes with biodegradable ones, you can sew reusable cotton pads from fabric. Paula sewed ours from her old pajamas shirt, but you can find also find ready ones sold in stores.
Bring your own
Meanwhile, you have replaced all the plastic products with sustainable options in your backpack, you are often offered single-use plastic products where ever you go. You can easily solve this problem by bringing your own reusable options.
It is important to keep yourself hydrated, but this doesn´t mean buying dozens and dozens of plastic bottles from the store. When you have your own metal or glass bottle with you, you can always just refill it. You can basically ditch all the plastic bottles to the past life if you invest in a water purifier. A water purifier will clean your drinking water. It comes handy even in places, where you can´t drink tap water and you will be one step closer to your plastic-free life.
Many restaurants and bars offer and use single-use cutlery and straws, which is a shame. Make sure to pack with you your own bamboo or metal cutlery and straw. That way you can encourage companies to get rid of using plastic straws and single-use cutlery. If you have leftover food to take with you, roll into a beeswax wrap and pop into a reusable canvas bag.
What else can I do?
We hope you have gotten some inspiration and new ideas on packing your travel kit more sustainable. If you already have all the products mentioned above with you – keep it up, we are proud of you! When you have your plastic-free travel kit ready to go, you can start focusing on the other items you can find in your backpack.
If you are traveling somewhere warm, you are most likely to pack some sunscreen and swimsuit with you. While enjoying the ocean, make also sure to do your best to protect it. Choose a sunscreen that won´t harm the marine life and is reef-safe, read more from our post:
VIEW POST: Why Use Reef-Safe Sunscreen.
Whereas we try our best to avoid creating new plastic waste, unfortunately we have our oceans full of it already. Luckily there are amazing companies like Londre Bodywear that create something beautiful out of plastic waste. Londre Bodywear makes their swimsuits out of recycled plastic bottles and in each suit they use at least 6 bottles! If you use the code: LONDRELOVESTHERAINBOW you will get 10% off your purchase and you will also help us clean the ocean. Londre will donate 10% of your purchase to the Ocean Cleanup.
We hope this guide helped you to pack your backpack with a sustainable travel kit and products. There are also other ways to travel more sustainable. Keep your eyes open as we will be posting about this theme!
