Traveling without Plastic Bottles
By: Tom Mercer on 10 15, 2007
By now, the environmental sins of bottled water have been well-documented. Bottled water is a luxury good in the developed world, where we can drink water that’s just as good (if not better) right out of the tap. Plus, only about one-fourth of the plastic bottles that we consume in this country actually get recycled. And the petroleum that we use to produce the PET bottle plastics is derived from petroleum.
All in all, plastics are a dirty material, mainly because they never biodegrade, so unless we recycle it, the plastic we produce could well fester in a landfill or float on the surface of the ocean for generations… possibly forever. Charles Moore is well known for his research on the floating plastic in the oceans, mainly because he found a persistent area of floating plastic the size of Texas out in the North Pacific Ocean.
The bottom line? We need to find ways to curb our consumption of plastic, and unfortunately, one of the times we feel we can’t avoid consuming beverages in plastic bottles is when we’re traveling. Here are a couple of tricks to avoid plastic bottles entirely:
1) When flying, bring an empty plastic bottle or Nalgene through security and fill it up at a water fountain inside security. As long as you’re not transporting any liquids at all, you are unlikely to run afoul of security. Aluminium bottles are an even more stylish choice of container.
2) When traveling to a country where you can’t drink the water straight out of the tap, consider bringing a purifying system instead of drinking bottled water. Obviously, this is more practical in Russia than, say, Bangladesh, but if you bring your MSR purification system (a filter alone is not sufficient to kill viruses - for that you need chlorine), you should be able to make the drinking water potable in most situations. Consult the manufacturer to confirm that your choice of purification systems kills all the local critters you’ll be exposed to.
(Thanks to the folks at Lonely Planet for this second tip!)
One Response
Awesome ideas. Check out EarthWater - if you must use bottled water they donate 100% of their profits as a company to creating drinkable water sources around the world.