Green Living
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Green while traveling / on vacation
How do you contribute to being green when you travel by car, train, boat, or plane?
How green are you when you are at your destination? (hotels or when visiting friends / family)?
I am finding it hard to stay green at someone else's house and also trying not to offend in any way, wondering what everyone else does in these situations.
Re: Green while traveling / on vacation
I've been doing nothing but travelling the last 3 months, and feel pretty powerless in this regard. Sometimes there are eco-friendly options for hotels and stuff, but most of the time it's like a green version of a 4 star hotel, so even the "non-green" version is way out of my price range (we're on a Youth Hostel kind of travel budget). I find myself using products like little sanitary wipes or hand sanitizer gel (that I wont touch back home) because I know that the water I rinse the soap off with is a health hazard. And for all my efforts otherwise, I'm going through bottled water like there is no tomorrow.
I'm trying not to stress about it and to remember that most of the time I'm not on vacation. It's much more important to green your home life.
I have noticed a lot of hotels now have a thing where they don't change the linens if you put out a sign. So I usually do that.
You could bring your own toiletries instead of using the mini hotel ones? So that you aren't throwing out little plastic bottles. Although for air travel, not sure about traveling with liquids.
That's a tough one. I think if you are traveling more locally/by car, you could think about bringing your own snacks and drinks so that you aren't buying stuff along the way. For instance, bring a whole size bag of pretzels instead of buying multiple smaller bags? And def bringing your own water in stainless bottles or whatveer. BUt other than car rides, I'm not sure.
Nest Bio ~ ~ Baby Food Blog
Second what ArticFox said. I don't have the hotel change my linens or towels. I bring my own tolietries and use the provided iron rather than having my clothes dry-cleaned to get the wrinkles out when I get there. When I travel by car, I bring a SS water bottle and our own snacks, which are large bags of chips or trail mix. We also bring a collapsible (sp) water bowl for the dog so we're not getting a cup every time we stop. I research local/organic restaurants at my destination so when someone asks "where should we go for dinner" I can say "I heard XY is good" and they don't even know it serves local food.
I try extremely hard not to fly, that's like the least green thing you can do. All modes of transportation are greener than flying.
I've flown 80,000 miles for work since January. And most of my work travel is to places with inconsistent electric supplies (which means hotels and offices run generators for many hours a day). So...yeah, I'm basically screwed in that regard.
In most places I travel I find it easier to eat local/organic than at home. I spend the most time in sub-Saharan African where there isn't very much large scale factory farming and many farmers can't afford pesticides. Very little staple food is imported from overseas (unless you're eating fancy French cheeses or something).
Unlike in the US, I don't feel guilty about going out to eat because I can be quite confident that my food is coming from a good place.
What I can't be confident about is heavy metal contamination. The city in which I spend the most time has a highly contaminated river (from mine runoff) and most of the vegetables in the city are grown on the banks of this river. The heavy metal contamination in these vegetables has been recently documented and it is frightening. I only spend ~15 weeks a year in this city, so I'm far less worried about myself than the residents who eat those vegetables every day for decades.