Traveling in Italy: Ways We Are Reducing Waste Abroad

Categories Family, travel, Zero WasteLeave a Comment on Traveling in Italy: Ways We Are Reducing Waste Abroad

Traveling is one of those things that I love oh-so-much but also feel really bad about since I know how much it negatively impacts the planet. We have gotten used to flying regularly each year too – we fly to see family, to visit friends, for work, for vacation, for bachelor/bachelorette parties — really, so much flying!

Another negative aspect about traveling is how much waste is created. Right at the airport, if you didn’t pack your own food, you would be purchasing a to-go item at the terminals that is probably packaged in plastic and comes with one-time use plasticware. With a little planning ahead you can absolutely avoid this situation. For us unfortunately, taking our first international flight as a family, we didn’t plan ahead. We did bring our own bamboo silverware, reusable straws and water bottles however. It’s nice to turn down the plastic silverware!

Sightseeing in Rome

So here we are in the middle of our two-month adventure in Italy and as much as we are trying to reduce our waste, it has been really hard! We are staying in 8 different cities, renting a car for four of those weeks to get around the country-side, and trying to cook at least one meal at our guesthouse each day to save money.

What we have found to be easy:

  • Refilling our water bottle in each city while sightseeing. There are fountains that have potable drinking water!
  • Declining plastic silverware when ordering takeout.
  • Using our own Tupperware to store leftovers (we packed one small one in our suitcase but have accumulated a few ordering takeout).
  • Buying produce without using plastic bags.
  • Recycling plastic or glass bottles while sightseeing. Throughout Italy, we have found there are separate trash bins to recycle!

What we have found to be hard:

  • Even though we have diligently saved our gelato spoons from the first place we ever bought gelato, we keep getting new ones.
  • Ordering takeout and not be able to salvage the takeout container to recycle.
  • We are still producing a fair amount of trash from buying packaged items at the store.

I also really like that we have been able to compost while in Tuscany. I’m so used to composting from living in San Francisco so it’s nice to be able to do it while abroad. I think while it’s been hard to completely reduce waste while traveling, it’s nice to be conscious about our decisions and effort.

What does sustainable living mean for my family?

Categories FamilyLeave a Comment on What does sustainable living mean for my family?

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Earth does not belong to man; Man belongs to the Earth. — Chief Seattle

Before we had a family, we were pretty good at composting, recycling and even remembering to bring our own bags for grocery shopping. That right there deserves a medal. But since it was just the two of us, I never really put much thought into our own carbon footprint beyond decreasing our Amazon purchases of cotton balls (guilty!) and perhaps eating less meat. Somehow having kids have really made us look at ourselves– our behaviors, our actions, and how much of an impact we really have on the planet.

Just have a baby and you’ll see the diapers filling up the trash, the loads and loads of laundry done round-the-clock, and all the plastic things that are packaged in more plastic. It seriously made me anxious and shrivel up a little on the inside thinking about all the things that we were adding to the landfill (that will still be around even when we die, and when our children die!!). To add to this spiraling tailspin, as new parents we were just trying to figure out how to keep our baby alive, “when was the baby’s last pee diaper?,” “is the baby sleeping too much?,” “what does orange poop mean?”–we also felt compelled to ponder (and research obsessively) the most eco-conscious friendly things we can do to lessen our newest family member’s impact onto the world. It’s unrelenting how much there is to consider. Even if you proclaimed that you are cloth diapering in a Facebook parents’ group (these groups are a blessing and a curse by the way), I guarantee you someone will ask you if you had considered the high usage of water and electricity that comes with cloth diapering or if you are using a service, the effects of the traffic and carbon emissions the delivery service you’re using has on your neighborhood. I hate these comments! Let’s all agree that navigating a sustainable, greener, cleaner way of living is H-A-R-D and that we are all trying to do our best with the information we have. 

So what to do and where to begin? How does a (young) family live sustainably without having to necessarily endure great inconvenience (think little kids)? My husband and I are dedicated to finding ways to live sustainably that are truly, well, sustainable for our family. So while it sounds really appealing to make our own toilet paper out of old shirts, if we are washing poop rags all day (again, think little kids), I doubt we would be able to stick with it for the long run for it to actually mean something. The kind of things we want to explore are the kind of things we know we can fully commit to. For instance, we started bringing our own Tupperware out to restaurants so if we have any leftovers, we ask if we can just box it up in our own box. So far no one has said “no” and I’m not quite sure what they think about us bringing our own Tupperware, but all I know is that it is sustainable for us and we are eliminating one-time use plastics in those takeaway boxes. 

We are definitely not perfect and I will not even try to pretend that we are. Our favorite motto is, “progress, not perfection,” that helps us stay motivated to change ourselves. I’d love to hear anything you’re doing, small or big, to promote sustainable living.