From October 26th to October 28th I went on my college marching band trip to St. Louis, MO. A lot of the time traveling can be one of the biggest opportunities to produce more waste than usual. It's also a big opportunity to produce less waste and have a lower impact than usual. If you prepare the right way, and are conscious while traveling, a low impact (and plastic free!) trip will be easily obtainable. Preparation One of the biggest things to creating a low impact trip is preparing for it. The biggest dilemma of single use plastics is food. Candy, snacks, restaurants, and more could potentially come with plastic if you aren't familiar with the brand/company. Here’s what I packed in my bag to prepare for a plastic free, low impact, St. Louis All of these things I stored in my backpack for on the bus. The Stasher bags and paper bag hold snacks that I got at my local health food store, which has a bulk section. The big empty container is for leftovers at restaurants. I absolutely love my Patagonia foldable bag, and carry it around with me on all my trips. It's perfect to put in my backpack, then unfold and stash stuff in it to leave the bus/hotel and walk around. The things unlisted are my Vaseline lip balm, two Endangered species chocolate bars (paper and foil for the packaging), and a oil roll-on for face moisture and cuts. Not pictured is my gigantic water bottle I carry around, and the utensils that are inside of the case. Day One: travel Day one was traveling to St. Louis. We left at 5:30 a.m. and stopped in Nashville, TN for lunch at the Opry Mills Mall. For the morning I had filled up two glass Teavana bottles with drinks from Starbucks for my boyfriend and I to have as our caffeine. It looked a little strange with the Teavana labels still on the bottles, but this way we could recycle them when they were empty, and not have to worry about keeping up with them for the entire trip. I wasn't quite sure what my plan was for lunch when we first got to the mall (I tried my best to be vegan on this trip),
Dinner was a tad bit different. We stopped for dinner at the Fox Sports Midwest Live! which is basically a giant bar with multiple small restaurants inside for people to watch games. They fed all 500 of us a buffet dinner.
The two plates were plastic I couldn't avoid. I needed to eat dinner, and had already paid for it in my trip money. We got to our hotel and me and my friends decided to go out and find ice cream. On their website it specified that it was a rolled ice cream shop, so there was no sorbet or alt-milk ice creams. That was a bit disappointing, but they had matcha ice cream, and matcha is one of my favorite things ever so I figured it was worth the dairy and the walk over there. Day two: Free Day Breakfast for day two was in the hotel. They had real forks and plates for all of us, along with a buffet breakfast. No plastic there! That made me happy. Day two was our free day in the city. We didn't really have much of a plan, except for going to the arch, and eating Thai food. While we waited for our trip up to the top of the arch in the tiny elevators, we kind of just hung out around the small museum and gift store below the arch. They had fudge at the gift store, and since I sometimes make fudge for a local chocolate shop I wanted to go try their fudge just to compare. I asked the lady for a sample, and she promptly grabbed a tiny plastic spoon, scooped up some fudge, and held it out. I was disappointed, but I knew if I had refused the sample she would have just thrown it away. The only other plastic at the arch that I "used" was the plastic lining around the puzzle box I bought for my family to enjoy.
The city of St. Louis had many "Birds" and "Lymes" in the city, which were electric scooters that you paid to use. They are 15 cents a minute, and they can go up to 15 mph, so you ride them wherever a bike can go. That means even the bike lanes in the road. The electric scooters aren't just in St. Louis, but it was my first time on one. I think they're pretty awesome. They run on battery, meaning it's a carbon free ride, and it's not really that expensive. They are controversial, however, especially when it comes to accessibility. You park the scooters somewhere on the sidewalk, and are supposed to park them out of the way. If you park them incorrectly, then they can be in the way for people who rely on a wheelchair to get around.
After coffee, we stopped to look in a few stores, and then headed to the hotel so we can travel to practice in the Dome. It was really late after practice, but thankfully a small Dineresque restaurant called The Corner: Street Food was open from 10pm-3am on the weekends. We were able to get burgers and fries in "for here" and then transfer it to my blue Tupperware container. They weren't fully sure that the fries or the bun had dairy, but I decided to go for it anyways because I was starving, and that was one of my very limited options for a late night dinner. For Part Two of this blog, click here.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
Categories
All
Archives
December 2018
Ally
Just looking out for the Earth and everyone who lives on it. |