4 Apps For Zero Waste Travelling
It can be hard to stay zero waste when travelling, but these 4 apps make it a little easier!
When away from home you have to start from scratch finding all the resources you need to help you reduce your waste. You have to figure out where you can buy food in bulk, where you can compost your food waste, where you can refill your water bottle with water that is safe to drink, and if there are any sustainable businesses around to support.
Luckily, there’s an app for all of that! We list 4 apps that help us stay low waste when travelling.
1. Where to compost when living out of a suitcase?
Food should never be sent to landfill if at all possible - when it breaks down in landfill it creates methane gas, which has a warming potential that is much higher than carbon dioxide, and it is a waste as it can be used to create healthy soil via composting.
That’s why, even when travelling, we hang on to our food scraps until we find somewhere we can compost them. Obviously, you don’t want to be carrying around food waste for too long, so how can you make sure you will be able to find somewhere to compost near you?
One great option is the ShareWaste app, which has a global map that shows people in your area that are happy for others to use their compost bin or worm farm. It connects people wanting to donate organic waste with those that want to receive it and those that want to receive it with those that want to donate it.
Simply open the app, find someone near you, message them on the app, and discuss a way or make a time to drop it off!
Other options for disposing of biodegradable waste responsibly when out and about are:
check if the cafe or restaurant you are in has a bin for biodegradable waste
keep an eye out for food waste bins other cafes or restaurants around town and sneak it in
look for a local community garden with shared composting facilities
does the council collect food waste? If so, find a local’s bin you can put it in or ask if your Airbnb has a composting solution if you’re staying in one.
2. Find ethical eats and sustainability focused food wherever you are
We love supporting businesses making an effort to be more sustainable and less wasteful. We would much rather spend our money with them than somewhere with little regard for the environment, especially when visiting countries where plastic pollution and environmental impact is a huge problem.
These places not only make their own space as eco-friendly as possible, they usually also educate the public about being more aware and caring for the environment.
So, how do you find ethical eats and sustainably focused food wherever you are? Use the Fair Food Forager app! It lists food outlets all over the world that adhere to fair and sustainable practices and they are categorised in categories such as local produce, charitable, fair work, vegan, gluten free, fair trade, sustainable seafood, homemade, and no food waste so you can choose somewhere to eat according to what is important to you.
It also helps us find vegan and vegan-friendly food places wherever we are. Other options for finding vegetarian or vegan restaurants across the globe are the Happy Cow app, which shows all the vendors in your vicinity offering vegetarian or vegan food or that have vegetarian or vegan options, and the abillionveg app, which helps you find vegan options anywhere - even at eateries that aren’t vegan friendly.
In addition, for every review of plant-based food on the abillionveg app, money is donated to support farm animals and marine life rescue initiatives around the world. Get reviewing here.
Please use our referral code, REUSABLENATION, at signup!
We find that food vendors focused on sustainable solutions are more likely to let you use your reusables like your reusable coffee up and a reusable container to put your takeaway food in so this helps us stay zero waste ourselves as well. Some even have a small bulk food section or will be able to point you in the direction of one.
3. Help avoiding plastic water bottles when you can’t drink the tap water
When you’re in a country or town where it is not safe to drink the tap water, this doesn’t automatically mean you have to give in to plastic water bottles. There are ways around it! We discuss them all in our How To Avoid Plastic Water Bottles When You Can't Drink The Tap Water blog post, but one of the ways is using mobile apps to find out where you can refill your water bottle with drinkable water.
There are a number of different apps you can download that show where safe drinking water refill stations are. These include the Choose Tap (Australia only), Refill (UK based but expanding outside the UK) , Refill Bali (Bali only), and Refill My Bottle, which is worldwide!
Based on your GPS location, these apps will locate the closest water refill station to you and show you where it is on a map. Some even give you directions.
You can also look for the Refill’s refill droplet “free water available here” sticker in shop windows. Stores displaying this sticker will fill up your water bottle for you for free.
4. Where to buy in bulk and without packaging when backpacking
At home, you know where to get all your staple pantry items without packaging and where your closest bulk food store is, as well as where to find plastic-free fruit and produce and which delis and food businesses will let you use your own container.
When away from these familiar, known haunts, how can you keep this up and know where to go?
We’ve made it really easy for you if you’re travelling around Australia! We have created a Google map that we like to think is the most comprehensive map of where to shop zero waste all around Australia. You can open it up in your Google Maps app on your phone by clicking on the view larger map icon in the top right hand corner to find shops selling various things in bulk near you.
If you’re traversing another country, Google maps is a good place to start. Googling “bulk food store”, “wholefoods store”, “health food store”, or “food co-op” can bring up a few options. Look through the listings images to see if they are actually what you’re looking for as everything that comes up won’t definitely sell package-free goods.
Otherwise, Zero Waste Home has a bulk finder on its website that is very useful when travelling in the United States and Europe and some other countries.
How do you keep your waste low when exploring the planet? Any apps not listed that you use to help you? Let us know in the comments!
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