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!

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.