Recycling while Traveling
By Karina | May 24, 2010
When you travel a lot – even if it’s just within the USA – it really strikes you how difficult it can be to recycle on the go. I went on another one of my long trips around the southeast US recently, and once again I was kind of stymied when it came to disposing of my trash. Now, I did a good job of avoiding disposables – I had a water bottle and my coffee mug – but there were a few times when I just wanted to drink some SODA. Long hot dusty motorcycling days will do that to you, you know? I don’t drink it that frequently – it’s a special treat kind of thing – and I did pass up several treats while traveling because I didn’t want to worry about what to do with the packaging.
But what’s a girl to do when she doesn’t want to contribute more GARBAGE as she drinks her horribly unsustainable, awfully bad for you soda pop? Well, this girl decided that she would buy cans of soda when absolutely necessary. The rationale is this: you can smash them small, and bring them home with you to recycle in the appropriate fashion. So the two cans of coke that I enjoyed were stepped on, smashed flat, and tucked into my saddlebags to take home. My partner had a slightly larger travel bag on his motorcycle, so when he bought a plastic container of pop he carried it with him until he found a state that would recycle. I will say that we retraced our route over the NC ferries, and I was disappointed to see that the ferry we were on this year didn’t have a cool can crusher on board.
All in all, however, I think it’s a reasonably good path to first avoid the purchase, and when you finally do give in, stick with aluminum cans and carry them home with you.
What do you do when you’re on the go and you really really really want something that has a hard-to-dispose-of package?
[[Photo from flickr user Urban Woodswalker via creative commons.]]
Topics: General | 3 Comments »
The Ferry we took this year didn’t have the cool can crusher, but it did have recycling bins on board! The hotel on Ocracoke Island also had a separate recycling pail in the room which was nice. I travel all over the place and that was the first hotel in a long time that had separation in the room, go independents!
When traveling in or near a medium sized or larger city , try calling 311. Many cities have this information help line service and can tell you where their municipal recycling facilities are located. Beats schlepping your recycling all the way home.
Interesting take on the recycling issue. In my travels, I would buy bottles that I could reuse by filling with water or other drinks (one of my friends would make tea at breakfast, which is often free, then pour it into a drink bottle that she reused for tea each day).
I will also add that there are places that are more recycling friendly as well, Seattle and Portland in the Northwest are well known for it. Another great place that recycles in abundance is New Zealand. They even have great bright green bins for recycling in most major cities :)
Thanks again for the great blog!