Traveling to the UK yesterday (and this morning) was hard for me. Both as a Mom and as an environmentalist. From the Mom perspective it is because I have only been away from B for 4 nights in total since he was born. It took everything I had in me to walk away from the car with him bawling in the backseat yelling 'NO NO NO MOMMY'. From an environmentalist perspective I did what I could to reduce the impact of my trip but really there was only so much I could do.
Before the trip even started I was already in the red with this trip. I had to to break my no printing streak when I had to print an immigration letter from my company (which I was never asked for when I went through customs). I didn't technically print it because my boss printed it so she could sign it for me but still that counts as 'me' printing because it is something I needed.
I didn't print any of my itinerary but instead I kept copies on my BlackBerry and PlayBook in case I needed them. When I was checking in to my flight I did have the option to have my boarding pass emailed to me. Sweet! I took this option and the QR code it sent was scanned at each check point on the trip.
When dinner was served on the plane it all went downhill. I had brought my bamboo spork and water bottle but when my tray arrived it was full of plastic.
* Plastic container housing cucumber salad (with a lid)
* Plastic wrap around the bun
* Plastic wine bottle
* Plastic container with the main course (plastic film on top)
* Plastic bag with plastic form and knife
* Plastic container housing a brownie (with a lid)
* Plastic glass for the wine
* Plastic container of butter
* Bottle of water (Enviroclear spring water ::rolls eyes:: )
Based on what they gathered up independently during cleanup I would say that of all of this the only things that were recycled were the pop cans and the plastic cups. It looked like the rest maybe trash.
I plan on reaching out to the airline to find out what would have happened if I had refused the plastic cutlery bundle or the plastic bottle of water. I know when I did a waste audit for them when I was in university these unused items went into the trash so I would like to find out if that has changed.
How do you fly and reduce your impact?
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