6 Easy tips on how to leave no trash on your next flight

Reading Time: 5 minutes

I had a chat with a friend the other day and he told me: “Ok, what can I do to reduce my waste when I’m travelling? I’m flying in a month, what would you do? Where do I start? But I want it to be simple! ”

I was very happy he asked: this is a perfect topic for anyone who is about to board on a plane and wants to be more mindful about leaving no trash behind.

The ugly truth is that flying can’t be zero waste, at least for now… but did you know that you can reduce your waste while boarding on that next flight?

Here’s how with 6 easy steps that you can take right away!

     1. Boarding pass: Go paperless

This might be obvious but I still see people lining up at the check-in counters with their paper boarding passes. Most, if not all of the airlines are offering E-tickets (Electronic tickets), downloadable via email or through the airline mobile application: easy-peasy! We all own a smartphone in this digital era 🙂

Of course, some airlines will print a boarding pass while checking-in but at least, you’ve avoided printing it twice.

      2. Dress code: Be prepared

Dress warm! Especially on long flights! I always bring a hoodie, a pair of socks and a big scarf that I can use as a blanket. You can then avoid using the airline blanket wrapped in a single-use plastic: it’ll be one less used plastic package but every action counts, especially if we all do it.

If you’re sensitive to the cold, you can bring your own travel set that includes a blanket in addition to the neck pillow and eye mask.

        3. Headphones: Bring Your Own

Most of us own a pair of headphones nowadays: the one that came with our smartphone or the one that we bought for a better sound quality.

Well, you can bring them with you on your next flight: it’s the new concept! BYOH, Bring Your Own Headphones, similar to the BYOB! I guess we all know that one 🙂

So why should you BYOH? To avoid using the airlines headphones, usually wrapped in a single-use plastic. And let’s be honest, the sound quality will be way better with your own headphones!

         4. Travel utensils: Choose reusable

We’ve all been in that situation when you’ve been asked to drink your entire water bottle before going through the airport security or just toss it if you were not that thirsty… Well, we usually toss it and it’s such a waste: a waste of water, a waste of money and one more plastic bottle in the recycling chain, if it’s ever get recycled…but that’s a story for another time.

Here we go! Going back to the BYOB concept: Bring Your Own (water) Bottle!

You have many options out there: you have the insulated water bottle that keeps your drink fresh in the summer and hot in the winter. Or there is the stainless bottle, the glass bottle, the bottle with a fruit-infuser compartment, the BPA-Free sport water bottle or even the bottle with a built-in filter that purifies the water. You can find them at your nearby supermarket or at your favorite sports store.

You can then fill your reusable water bottle at a water fountain after the security checkpoint: most of the international airports do have water fountains, or another option would be to politely ask for water at one of the airport coffee-shops or bars. They rarely say no ^^

You can also bring your reusable bamboo cutlery set of a fork, spoon and knife to avoid using the airlines plastic cutleries wrapped in once again, single-use plastic.

And don’t forget your reusable stainless steel straw, instead of sipping your drink out of a single-use plastic straw on board AND at your destination.

          5. Toiletry: Go trash-free

The best option is to bring solid body hygiene products: solid usually means no packaging which is good if you want to be trash-free. You do have the timeless soap bars such as the famous “Savon de Marseille”, solid shampoo, solid deodorant and even solid toothpaste.

As I’m currently in France, I personally use this solid shampoo from Lamazuna and I’m very happy with it; they do have different ones according to your hair type. I plan to try their solid deodorant and toothpaste. Other alternatives in France are Pachamamai and Lulu & Guite.

If you’re outside France, I’m pretty sure you can find solid products at your local organic shop or at a Lush cosmetics store.

If you’re not ready to go solid yet, you still can stick to your refillable travel size items; and refill at a bulk shop once arrived at your destination if you need to (and if possible).

But going solid is easier than you think, I’ll share with you how to pack a trash-free toiletry bag in a future article 🙂

          6. Duty-free: Break free

Duty-free shopping can be tempting but it’s not waste-free: duty-free items are sealed in a special single-use plastic bag for security purposes.

You can’t get round this rule so break free from Duty-free: do good to your wallet and to the planet! 🙂

Hope this first DYK (Did You Know?) gave you useful tips and will help you hop/continue on your “Leave No Trash” journey.

You can also think of packing your snack to escape the single-use plastic food items on the plane. This really is a very personal choice and depends on each and every one of us but I wanted to mention that you can bring food such as sandwiches, pastries or nuts among others as long as it’s not liquid; just make sure to check the food regulations in the destination country beforehand.

That is said, we can go further towards reducing our footprints while travelling, such as “How to offset your carbon footprint” for example, and many other tips to come!

So stay on board if you want to know more and don’t want to miss a thing! 😉

PS: I’m NOT affiliated with any of the above brands: I’m just sharing my findings!

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