Zero waste travel isn’t about perfection, but it does take a little bit of sustainably savvy know-how.
As travel ramps up around the globe, we’re heartened to see tourists, sightseers, visitors, globetrotters, backpackers, pilgrims, gadabouts, rovers, explorers, vacationers and vagabonds and are making more conscious choices regarding sustainable travel.
So how does the zero waste movement fit in the picture?
Sustainable travel is a more general concept where the aim is to reduce the tourism industry’s negative impact on a social, economic, and environmental level. Zero (or more realistically) low waste travel is the fine print, or the specific details of how to make sustainable travel come to life.
Contents: Zero Waste Travel Ideas
- Source Second Hand Travel Gear Jump to section
- Consider Your Mode Of Transportation Jump to section
- Offsetting Carbon Emissions Jump to section
- Digital Transactions Jump to section
- Bring Your Own Snacks Jump to section
- Reduce Food Packaging Jump to section
- Zero Waste Toiletries Jump to section
- Laundry Options On The Road Jump to section
- Rechargeable & Eco Friendly Electronics Jump to section
- The Five Rs Jump to section
- Sights Over Souvenirs Jump to section
Source Second Hand Travel Gear
Making a list of necessary items for a trip is one of the most exciting parts of travel (or is that just us?). While buying new, sustainable gear is a solid step, we recommend sourcing second hand first, which is always more environmentally friendly.
In terms of shoes, you can definitely get a new pair so they’ll break into your foot shape, but things like backpacks, clothing, tents, and other camping gear can generally be found at an online thrift store. Craigslist, local Buy/Sell/Swap Facebook groups, and Facebook Marketplace may also help you find exactly what you need at a fraction of the cost.
Reusing is the most important zero waste travel tip to keep in mind throughout all of your adventures.
Also keep minimalism principles front of mind too by not packing or procuring more than you need. Start with a small suitcase because the bigger your bag, the more you’ll feel the need to fill it. If you can’t find suit(case)able options second hand, opt for eco friendly luggage.
Consider Your Mode Of Transportation
So much of the waste generated in life and travel (tangible or otherwise) is not seen. There is no more insidious form of unseen waste than carbon emissions, the dreaded greenhouse gasses that are quite literally fueling climate change more than paper plane tickets ever could.
When planning your low waste travel experience, keep this in mind as you pick your mode of transportation—not all forms are equally carbon conscious.
Utilizing conversion factors, the BEIS analyzed the emissions per passenger (i.e. accounting for the fact that planes hold far more passengers than cars) per kilometer traveled. While a single-passenger car has more direct CO2 emissions (171g) than either domestic or long-haul flights (133g and 102g, respectively), the “secondary effects of high-altitude, non-CO2 emissions” put flights soaring ahead in overall impact—with added 121g and 92g of emissions.
Far better than driving solo or booking a flight, however, is to go via car-sharing, rail, or coach, each with significantly lower associated emissions.
The lesson? Book that Eurostar ticket!
If traveling, say, in America, where public transportation options outside major metropolitan areas severely limit your ability to choose more eco-friendly travel options, see if you have friends who’d like to combine their road trips with your own. If you’re renting a car and there are hybrid options at your disposal, opt for those. They’ll not only reduce oil consumption but will consequently save you some major money at the pump.
Or if you book with an eco tourism company they often will find the most environmentally mode of transport.
Offsetting Carbon Emissions
This is Boeing to be a big one, because no matter how much you try to minimize them, however, carbon emissions are unavoidable—unless you’re going Wild and planning to thru-hike the PCT.
Set aside a little from your trip budget to contribute to carbon offset programs that fund climate positive initiatives to counteract CO2 generation, such as renewable energy projects, reforestation, or sustainable infrastructure development. Airlines sometimes work with these programs. For a few dollars, you can add an offset to your flight seamlessly as you checkout.
There are even tools to help you calculate roughly how many emissions your trip will generate so you can offset accordingly.
If you want to go a step further and calculate/offset your own carbon footprint for your entire trip, look at Atmosfair. There are one-off, monthly, or yearly subscription options available.
Digital Transactions
Let technology be your zero waste travel guide. It’s simpler than ever to avoid paper waste thanks to the devices to which we’re (literally) attached at the hip. Going digital with all transactional receipts is already something we’d all like to do anyway!
While airplane tickets make for fun souvenirs or scrapbook decorations, if this isn’t a hobby of yours, opt instead for an emailed digital ticket or e-ticket. One less thing falling out of your backpack as you rush from Terminal A to Terminal F.
This goes for any tickets, from museums to movie theaters. It’ll save time, trees, and trouble with printers (which never work when you need them to).
Bring Your Own Snacks
There will be a number of travel scenarios where staying zero waste simply isn’t possible—but snacking isn’t one of them.
We all know that you have to toss out drinks before going through security at an airport, but as long as your food items don’t contain liquid, you can take them all the way through to the plane. Just note that perishable items like fruits or cheeses will generally need to be eaten before passing through customs if you’re traveling internationally.
Plus, that saves you money from buying ridiculously overpriced airport food.
Aim to pack those sustainable snacks in airtight, reusable containers or else bring protein bars from brands like GoMacro, then hang on to the wrappers and recycle them via Terracycle once your trip is over.
If you’re taking a road trip, avoid unhealthy foods at gas stations that typically come with a heap of collateral packaging. Make a meal-prep list ahead of time and go to bulk food stores in towns where possible, and go for long-lasting foods that don’t necessarily need to be refrigerated—like nuts and dried fruit.
Reduce Food Packaging
An extension of minimizing snacking waste is cutting down food packaging, but in a different context.
Tasting local food is one of the best things about travel, but if you’re ordering to-go or have leftovers, it’ll come in styrofoam or plastic, with plastic cutlery, in a plastic bag. So. Much. Excess.
Instead, pack reusable cutlery and a plastic-free food storage container for leftovers. Use a handkerchief instead of a single-use paper napkin.
And especially don’t forget to carry your own water bottle to cut down on single-use plastic bottles. If you’re traveling outside of North America and Europe, consider integrating it with a way to purify water, such as a Lifestraw.
Zero Waste Toiletries
Zero waste minimalist travel is a mindset to making sure every item in your pack is essential and ideally multi-purpose.
Toiletries and their associated plastic—especially for travel sized containers that only hold enough liquid for a few uses—can get out of hand quickly as well as take up alot of space and weight.
Eco-friendly toiletries aren’t just crucial for waste-free travel, but they can eliminate major TSA checkpoint related headaches. Swapping to liquid-less shampoo bars and toothpaste tablets (even just for the trip) not only eliminates plastic and TSA-bottle restrictions, but they’ll save major space in your suitcase.
If you do need liquids, seek packaging that can be refilled for your next trip (i.e. aluminum or glass).
Laundry Options On The Road
If you’re aiming for truly zero waste minimalist travel, you’ll likely be packing a minimalist wardrobe—which means you may find yourself doing laundry once or twice.
While we’re normally proponents of laundry powder or refillable liquids, when it comes to travel, laundry detergent sheets, pods, or soap nuts are the best choice in terms of portability. They’re super light, don’t need to be checked specially at TSA, and won’t risk spilling in your bag.
If you don’t have access to a washing machine, spot wash your clothes with these sheets or a laundry bar, which leads to less frequent washing (and less microplastic pollution).
Rechargeable & Eco Friendly Electronics
From supply chains to the materials used, eco-friendly electronics are few and far between. Last year, 63 million tons of e-waste made its way to landfill—which is said to be heavier than the entirety of the Great Wall of China!
And since travel has become so tech heavy, we should consider the gadgets we buys for our trips carefully. Is it something you NEED, or just something that you saw looked neat on TikTok?
Always use the tech you already own, buy refurbished if you need additional items, and make sure any relevant items are rechargeable. Normal batteries are single use and mostly end up as toxic bath salts in a landfill, whereas rechargeable batteries can be used 500-1000 times (depending on voltage and usage).
If you need something to charge your phone, tablet, laptop, smartwatch, sunset lamp, go-pro, drone, and fairy lights in your campervan, portable solar panels are the way to go.
To also limit having multiple, single country adapters (meaning more potential future waste), consider getting an all-in-one convert plug—and don’t forget to use it, or else risk shorting out your devices and having to replace their battery (we say from experience!).
The Five Rs
The five Rs can be implemented into any facet of everyday living—including those trips that help us get away from our everyday lives for just a little while.
1. Refuse:
Where you can, always refuse waste. This could be the plastic straws in cocktails on a Thai beach or the receipt for your new Moroccan hat. Be conscious of what makes its way into your bag (or your home), because it becomes your responsibility.
2. Reduce:
Excess production is a global problem, and the less we consume, the less will be produced. Think minimally when making purchases before and during your zero waste travels.
3. Reuse/repurpose:
All products you buy for the road should be bought with the intention of quality and longevity. Use the equipment you have first and get containers you can refill.
When something is no longer fit for its original use, but still has life left to give, this is time to get creative. Tore your t-shirt trekking through the Costa Rican jungle? Cut it up and make reusable napkins for the road.
4. Rot:
This refers to composting all organic waste. While tricky to achieve when traveling to most parts of the world, certain cities do have municipal composting programs you can utilize. If you’re traveling through rural locations, see if a local community garden or farmer would like your scraps.
In areas where composting is not an option, meal planning is key to avoid food waste and hang on to any compostable packaging until you find a solution, while on the road or at home.
5. Recycle:
This is always the last action to take because the vast majority of products never see a recycling facility. If you do need to recycle something, make sure you place it in the correct designated bin (difficult while traveling, we know).
Sights Over Souvenirs
What is the most important of all zero waste travel hacks?
Remember why you’re traveling in the first place. Hint: It’s likely to see and experience new things rather than stuff your suitcase with (often ingenuine) trinkets that don’t contain the real memories of your trip. Tours and once-in-a-lifetime experiences are the things you’ll remember and you can cement them by taking photos—which are also nearly waste free in our digital age.
If you do want to buy a couple of souvenirs to bring home for yourself and loved ones, try to make sure they’re practical ones or really thoughtful crafts that will be treasured, not tossed in the next round of spring cleaning.
Also be sure you’re supporting genuine local craftsmen and artisans as opposed to the many impersonating trinket stands. If it says “Made in China” avoid—unless of course you’re in China!
Unbelievable the amount of plastic bottles purchased in the USA that year – 50 billion! Insane that such a low percentage is recycled as well, considering it’s a developed country.
These tips are awesome though – can’t recommend traveling with shampoo bars and soaps more highly. Thanks for sharing!