Can a Family Trip to the Big Smoke be Eco-Friendly?
During October half-term we spent a few days exploring our capital. Although I used to live in London, I haven't visited much recently and my 7 year old had never been. So I was wondering, how far we could continue with our eco-friendly principles in a large, polluted city?
Eco-friendly highs
- We travelled by train from our home town of Exmouth in Devon, into London and back. Like many people, we then used the tube or our feet to travel around. This is so much better than our normal reliance on cars to get around in Devon.
- I used my reusable coffee cup and didn't use any single-use coffee cups. We used our reusable water bottles every day and didn't buy any bottled water.
- On the journey to London we brought along our own home-made lunch stored in containers or in a bees wax wrap, we also had unpackaged bananas and cookies bought in a bakery without any packaging.
- We stayed in a Premier Inn and there were the usual little containers of UHT milk. We didn't use any of them. Instead we asked for a little jug of milk which was poured out for us in the restaurant, this saved numerous bits of plastic from ending up in the bin and tasted so much better! I had never really thought of doing this before but it makes perfect sense.
- I had my normal shopping bags with us and refused single-use bags including the 'souvenir' bag from Hamleys.
- I took along my hankies and used them (but also had to use tissues as well)
- I carried our metal straws in my bag and used them instead of plastic straws (this was trickier that it should have been, see lows!).
- I took home our receipts to be recycled.
- I put drinks cans into the recycling bins in the street.
Eco-friendly lows
- Lots of things went into the hotel bin that we would have composted at home such as apple cores, banana skins and tissues. At home we usually use tea leaves and compost them but we had to use tea bags which were individually wrapped in paper. This meant we generated a lot more rubbish than we would at home.
-We ended up using a total of 7 plastic straws! We asked for drinks to be served without straws and they arrived with straws (Wagamama), we asked for glasses in a cafe and were given the glasses with straws, we were in a restaurant which states it will not give out straws unless you ask (Las Iguanas), the first drinks came without straws, the second drinks came with straws.
- There was bound to be so much more hidden wastage by eating out each day. We could not control what was bought and wasted in restaurants, cafes and hotels in the way we can at home.
- We were hungry at Exeter station last night so bought a KitKat to share, the plastic packaging went straight in the bin!
A little aside on children. I strongly believe my children have a right to choose, just like you and me. I have been criticised for this in the past but I feel being respectful to them is top of my list of priorities. So this means, they get to choose off the menu. I might prefer them to have a glass of squash served in a reusable cup but they might choose a single-use plastic bottle. When I go out with my friends, I might prefer they ask for a drink without a straw but they might choose a straw. I don't tell my friends what to choose so I don't tell my children. These highs and lows are my highs and lows (even though I have written 'we' from time to time in this post as we were out as a family). Having said that, I believe children will largely copy their adult caregivers and see this often in my children in their growing understanding and care towards the living planet.
I am actually quite pleased with how we got on and feel we have kept our environmental impact fairly low this week. It's clearly no way near perfect and we would have possibly had a lower impact on the planet by staying at home but I feel this was reasonable considering the options available to us.
