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no longer fantastic We’re all looking to use less plastic, but often the choice is taken out of our hands when we travel. Here’s how to get back control and do some good… WORDS EMMA THOMPSON 92 wanderlust.co.uk June 2019 ‘B y 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans.’ I was sitting in a boat off the coast of Greenland when I first heard this claim, from a report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and World Economic Forum, and it hit me like a sledgehammer. But life is busy and making mindful choices takes effort. Before long, I had fallen back into my old habits. Then a long-haul flight to Mauritius changed everything. I forgot something on the plane, and when I went back to retrieve it, the flight attendants were unloading all the waste from the flight. You expect it to be a lot, but I was appalled: 60 giant plastic bags bulging with plastic bottles, knives and forks, headphones, pudding pots – even those little stirrers to mix the milk into your coffee. And it finally hit home that this has to stop. If one aircraft can generate that much plastic, and there’s around 102,465 flights daily, we’re talking millions of bags of waste generated every day from flights alone. The debate about diminishing our reliance on plastics has been steadily growing, and last year marked a decisive turning point for several brands. Many are ditching the old linear ‘take-make-waste’ plastics economy in favour of a reusable model, which means, as travellers, we can now vote with our feet. Changing faces Hitting the headlines last year was Portuguese charter airline Hi Fly, Shutterstock
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RESPONSIBLE TRAVEL who launched their first passenger flight without any single-use plastic items on board. Cups, spoons, salt-and-pepper shakers, sick bags, drinks bottles and toothbrushes were replaced with bamboo cutlery, an array of paper packaging and compostable containers. “The test flight prevented around 350kg of single-use, virtually indestructible plastics from poisoning our environment,” said Hi Fly president Paulo Mirpuri, who is aiming to roll this exciting policy out across the fleet within the next 12 months. “Last year, commercial aircraft carried nearly four billion passengers. This number is expected to double again in less than 20 years. So, the potential to make a difference here is clearly enormous.” Air New Zealand closely followed, announcing the removal of fourteen single-use plastic products from its flights over the next year, and even Ryanair has pledged to become plastic free by 2023. As Air New Zealand’s head of sustainability, Lisa Daniell, explains: “If we were to line up all of the plastic stirrers we are replacing across our network, they would span the length of Cape Reinga to Taupo. That’s 700km of flimsy plastic spoons!” On the ground It’s not just about supporting forward-thinking airlines. You can apply this ethos to your whole trip, with tour operators now catering for this kind of experience too. ResponsibleTravel.com has now created a trip category with ‘zero tolerance’ for single-use plastics. May the forks be with you Bringing your own cutlery will make a huge dent in reducing plastics pollution “It’s challenging for trips that might, for example, stay in five different accommodations, visit ten restaurants and some visitor attractions,” admits CEO and founder Justin Francis. He explains the earliest successes have been with ‘single centre’ trips, where the operator has more control, which is something to think about when planning a trip. We can also support those trying to make reusable options more affordable. Wild Frontiers founder Jonny Bealby says: “We ask everyone to buy our heavily subsidised Water-to-Go self-filtering water bottles and also work with our partners on the ground to provide water in large 20-litre containers, from which you can fill up your bottle. So far, we’ve sold over 600 of the Water-to-Go bottles, ⊲ wanderlust.co.uk June 2019 93

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no longer fantastic

We’re all looking to use less plastic, but often the choice is taken out of our hands when we travel. Here’s how to get back control and do some good…

WORDS EMMA THOMPSON

92 wanderlust.co.uk June 2019

‘B

y 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans.’ I was sitting in a boat off the coast of Greenland when I first heard this claim, from a report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and World Economic Forum, and it hit me like a sledgehammer. But life is busy and making mindful choices takes effort. Before long, I had fallen back into my old habits. Then a long-haul flight to Mauritius changed everything.

I forgot something on the plane, and when I went back to retrieve it, the flight attendants were unloading all the waste from the flight. You expect it to be a lot, but I was appalled: 60 giant plastic bags bulging with plastic bottles, knives and forks, headphones, pudding pots – even those little stirrers to mix the milk into your coffee. And it finally hit home that this has to stop. If one aircraft can generate that much plastic, and there’s around 102,465 flights daily, we’re talking millions of bags of waste generated every day from flights alone.

The debate about diminishing our reliance on plastics has been steadily growing, and last year marked a decisive turning point for several brands. Many are ditching the old linear ‘take-make-waste’ plastics economy in favour of a reusable model, which means, as travellers, we can now vote with our feet.

Changing faces Hitting the headlines last year was Portuguese charter airline Hi Fly,

Shutterstock

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