I left Darfield with great intentions and a slew of items designed to help us minimize our waste on the road. I packed two tiffins for leftovers and packing lunches. We all had re-useable mugs and I also packed utensils and a few plates.
The trip across Canada was not too bad. When we stopped for hot drinks (or cold) we put them into our mugs. The one time we ate at Subway, we left without the plastic bags (but not the paper wrapping). All other meals we packed into our cooler and we exercised our usual waste-control measures.
I had to keep an eagle eye out at Tim Horton’s, though. I kept handing them our re-useable mugs all across the country and I let the first store decide what size it was. The second Tim Hortons didn’t believe the first place so they poured a large coffee into the paper cup an then poured it into mine. At the next Tim Horton’s I told them what the previous store had determined. They bought it, but she poured the coffee into the paper cup first, added sugar, STIRRED IT WITH A PLASTIC STRAW SHE TOOK OUT OF A WRAPPER, and looked guilty when I peered around the corner to see what she was doing.
I couldn’t stop myself…”It defeats the purpose of my mug, doesn’t it?” I asked? She told me that she had to stir it with something. I told her I had a spoon in my vehicle, when she’s handed a re-useable mug, she should think about why she’s being handed it. (That sounded crankier than it was, BTW).
All efforts and indignant outrage left me within 4 hours of hitting NYC. There is nothing about that city that is eco-friendly. At least nothing that I could see. No water conservation measures in the Best Western we stayed at…no re-useable dishes at the continental breakfast offering, no effort to try to reduce waste.
To complicate things, we were trying to pack very light when we were all around the city. That meant my wallet in my jacket pocket. No room for re-useable mugs. No room to carry tiffins when we purchased food.
Don’t get me started on all the paper we got handed as we entered every travel centre in a new state. Every time we went to a city attraction, we were handed tickets, brochures, etc. At a few places I asked if the paper would be re-used if we gave it back and nobody was even bothered by telling me that it all ends up in trash.
We have seen NOTHING that shows an effort at recycling. Plastic and glass bottles end up in the same trash. Paper is not separated into separate bins.
There must be efforts in this areas somewhere, and I do recognize that we have seen only a part of the US and that part is somewhat narrow; hotels, interstates, large city downtown cores.
Interestingly, Disney World, although as guilty of waste as anywhere, is making an effort scientifically in the food growing industy. One of the rides in the Epcott Centre takes visitors through their aquaponics facility. Chris ended up taking another tour separately and was able to see what they are doing with fish farming and aquaponics.
For the first little while I was quite chagrined at the lack of my ability to reduce our waste. Unfortunately, like everything, you get used to it. I gave up except for those things that were easy to control. I’m not sure how we could make this trip better waste-wise. Perhaps with more planning? However, our lack of planning has made this trip so much fun. Since Orlando, we haven’t known where we were headed more than 12 hours before we started the van.
I suspect if we do another Grand Adventure we will be destination-oriented, which lends itself to living less waste-fully.
It does make you think.
Regarding hotels – we have had a lot of luck just telling them not to clean our rooms therefore saving the sheets being washed, towels being replaced when it is not necessary. Keep in mind, we often stay in high end joints because Randy works for a Fairmont. This being said, we travel with children, and need to save every dollar we can – which means we cook in our rooms – complete with microwaves, coolers, you name it. When you add four people in two beds plus cots (and ski equipment) to the mess, we find most staff are happy to leave us be until we go. We strip the beds, pile the dirty linen and towels together to make it a bit easier on the staff and leave a generous tip. One set of sheets and towels thus lasts four days at least. We carry a backpack no matter where we go with water bottles, mugs, snacks, etc – great for reusing and also for storing garbage or recyclables if we can’t ditch them along the way. We cannot claim to be near as green as you and in fact our prime motivator is saving cash, but it works!
Maureen, when we are in one hotel for more than a night, we too decline to have linens changed or towels replaced. That’s only happened a few times on this trip… When we were sightseeing,etc. we found that with the increased security measures EVERYWHERE here in the US that it is easier not to carry a backback, which requires getting in a bag check line, increasing our wait time by 15 minutes at a time. Also, in Disney World/Harry Potter world, there were rides where you had to stash your loose items in lockers before taking the rides…so the first day when we packed snacks we found Chris and I had to split up with one of us going with the kids, one of us holding our stash. Having said that, that’s a pretty unique situation given that this was the first theme park we’d been to… Probably the thing that bothered me most about this trip is all the disposable china and cutlery everywhere. Today we stopped at a cafe in Cesear’s Palace and there was NO option for china/cutlery. All was plastic. It was depressing.