Staying sustainable on the road
Living responsibly can be difficult whilst on the road, the disposable nature of moving from place to place and being away from home can easily lead to being more wasteful. On the other hand, with very few belongings with us, we have the chance to start from scratch and be much more adaptable whilst we’re travelling than at home. In this post, we’d like to share a few things we’re working on at the moment to try and stay sustainable whilst we travel around South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand on a 7 month trip.
Reusable Water Bottles
There is much discussion about the safety and cleanliness of tap water in counties across the world. In many places we’ve visited in Europe, we have been advised to stick to bottled water, only to find the tap water perfectly safe. As we’re now travelling for much longer and to places with less developed water treatment, we’ve opted to be more cautious and stick to bottled or designated drinking water in some places. Whilst bottled water is inexpensive in the places we have visited so far, it is of course a hugely wasteful use of plastic, even if the bottles are recycled as much as possible.
We have yet to find a complete solution to making safe water available to us everywhere without buying any plastic bottles, but we have found carrying our refillable water canteens with us all of the time has allowed us to make use of drinking water sources wherever they’re available. We were also surprised to learn how many places offered some form of drinking water when we were more actively looking for it.
We do encourage you to check water dispensers or vending machines before using them however, as not all of them are well maintained.
Soap, Shampoo & Conditioner Bars
As well as being bulky and prone to leaks and spillages, conventional bottled shower products are a particularly big waste of plastic and can turn out to be expensive to continually replace. Something I had been trialling before we left to travel was swapping shower gel, shampoo and conditioner for bars of soap and solid shampoo bars.
Solid soap is the easiest way to switch from bottled products and I found that I much preferred the fragrance and general usage of soap. I also found I used far less soap than I would have done shower gel to achieve the same lather.
Shampoo bars require slightly more adjustment. With these, use the lather from them and work it up in your hands or by rubbing it into your hair before working it in more thoroughly. Conditioner bars can also seem a little strange at first, but the same applies, wetting the bar and working it up with your hands or hair before conditioning more deeply.
We’re currently carrying two bars of soap (one in use, one spare), two shampoo bars (one in use, one spare) and a conditioner bar between us. We were able to purchase some soap holders to carry them in, so a shower only requires two small boxes (we pack the shampoo and conditioner bars together). Our shampoo bars are from the fantastic Soul & Soap and cost just £3.99 each, with our current favourite being the newly stocked coconut fragrance.
We found it more difficult to find solid conditioner bars, but thankfully Lush came to our rescue. We’re currently using the Jungle conditioner bar, priced at a more expensive £6.95. Conditioner bars last far longer than shampoo bars however, so we’re happy to make the investment.
Refusing excess packaging
When we first arrived in Asia, we were surprised at just how many foods and drinks came with excessive amounts of plastic and packaging. We found that even food and drink being consumed in eateries and food centres was still often excessively packaged and bagged.
There have been a number of challenges in overcoming this, most notably in being able to communicate well enough to refuse excessive packaging. We have so far found it easy to refuse plastic bags, cutlery and plastic straws but other packaging still remains a challenge when we do not speak the language. In some cases we’ve been able to politely place some packaging on the counter or back in its holder.
Reusable Cutlery
We were pleased to find that many places on our travels do use reusable cutlery even when served at temporary outdoor seating, but there is still an abundance of plastic cutlery which is non-recyclable and non-reusable.
Our latest quest has been to find a reusable set of cutlery which we can carry in a hygienic case. We’ve yet to find anything that suits our needs enough, but we did come close with a set from Moshi Moshi in Thailand for just ฿40 (£0.93), but are yet to find a suitable case that can be kept clean and hygienic whilst we travel.
Laundry
Laundry is a tedious but necessary part of living out of a backpack. We’re currently carrying between 7 and 10 days worth of clothing, although we also double wear some items to increase this (sorry Mum). Where laundry facilities are not available, we’re both carrying a tube of Dr Beckman’s Travel Wash, which can be squeezed into a basin of water and used for hand washing. For normal washing machines, we’ve been using small packets of washing powder and fabric conditioner. These aren’t ideal, but we can wrap them up and take them with us if we don’t use a whole packet.
In Asia, we’re blessed by consistently warm temperatures which make outside drying the fastest and freshest way of drying our laundry. To help us, we’re carrying an easily packable elastic washing line with attached pegs (clips) which we picked up from Amazon for £3.47 which we can easily stretch between any kind of pole or post. In poor weather or a lack of outside space, the line can also be stretched across a bunk bed or just about anywhere else.
Help Us Out
Here are a few things we’re still in need of help with:
- Mosquito repellent: This is very important as mosquitos carry a number of infectious diseases. Avoiding mosquito bites can be a challenge and we’ve found varying levels of success with products which do not contain Diethyltoluamide (DEET). Whilst effective in repelling insects, DEET is also toxic to aquatic life and a plasticizer (used to increase the flexibility of plastics and rubbers when combined with them), which may affect some of the plastic products you come into contact with. We’ve so far found that many DEET-free citronella repellents aren’t as effective, so we welcome any suggestions here.
- Purifying tap water: We’d like to be able to cut out bottled water completely and safely, affordably and portably purify tap water in places where it is not drinkable. We welcome any suggestions from those who have done this successfully.
