Seven reusable travel essentials to avoid disposable plastic

Travelling can be a HUGE source of disposable plastic, particularly when it involves flying. Everything food and drink is served in or with is mostly single-use disposable plastic — including meal containers, utensils, condiment packaging, snack wrappers, cups and bottles. And aside from the food, there are all the plastic-packaged accessories like headphones and blankets. But with a tiny bit of preparation and a few basic reusable items it is not that hard to avoid disposable plastic, both during your flight and the rest of your trip.

Probably the hardest part of travelling when it comes to avoiding plastic and waste is flying. When I last flew overseas 18 months ago I was the most aware I’d ever been about disposable plastic and had the opportunity to see where a lot of it ends up. Hawai’i is a major gateway to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and a lot of plastic waste washes up on its beaches. So from witnessing this plastic graveyard close-up to losing count of how many gigantic rubbish bags the flight attendants filled with single-use plastics during my flight, this was one of the most excruciating experiences I’ve had.

People just didn’t seem to get it — they were just throwing rubbish away right? (Ahhhh ‘away’ — that magical place we have NO comprehension of). But given the average passenger creates 1.4kg of…