Could you go plastic free?

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Could you go plastic free?

Plastic free.jpg

 

Hello everyone,

  

With regular stories in the news referring to plastic in our oceans, it does feel that there is more talk than ever on wanting to address these issues. As part of this, recycling comes up a lot, but even more so there is a need to have more of a reusable (circular) idea about the product that we use. However, as an individual how easy is it to reduce our consumption?

 

With this in mind, if you had to go plastic free, or look to reduce the amount of plastic you throw away, do you think you would be able to do this? Perhaps you are doing this at the moment?

 

It would be great to discuss and hear your thoughts on this.

 

Thanks,

Lizzie


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148 Replies 148
Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

This is great to hear @Marlisa-And-Fernando0. It's great to hear you just fill up your dispensers. 

 

With recycling, are there any particular types of products that you find hard to recycle? I use to find things like plastic little wrappers for things like pulses. I've now stopped buying these, as the packaging isn't currently recycled in my area and now go and buy in bulk loose which I can either put in a paper bag or take my own container. 

 

It would interesting to hear your experience. 


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Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

Hi Lizzie, I think the hardest thing over here in Puerto Rico is the glass. Glass isn’t recycled on the island which is a huge problem seeing as guest come over to drink and party. So I encourage them to get cans. Other than that I don’t have anything that requires any plastic wrapping that can’t be recycle. I’ve been able to just stock everything they need in bulk, like the shampoo. Even the toilet paper comes in a paper wrapping instead of plastic. And it’s very hard to do considering we live on a small island. What I can’t get at the stores I buy on amazon. For water I’ve put filters in the 3 units and supply then with stainless steel water bottles, so know water bottles. Yup the hardest thing is glass. I mean with 3 units and guest in and out all the time there’s a lot of glass whether you want it or not. 

@Marlisa0 and Fernando,

do you have recycling for cans there?

Maybe you need to do a kick starter for glass, it's so much better for the environment, they do have individual glass bottle compactors that crushes them to be used for other purposes.

I think it may have been a New Zealand person who invented it as I recall reading about it in an Engineering magazine we have here.

Perhaps that's an option you could explore..

All the best

Jack-and-Sherri0
Level 3
Yucca Valley, CA

Tea Bags, I use loose tea and tea balls. I offer this to my quest as well. No waste 🙂

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

This is cool, @Jack-and-Sherri0. I'm actually toying with the idea of starting to buying tea leaves instead. Just out of interest, do you find they are more expensive?


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Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

Michael2440
Level 2
Denver, CO

This conversation is the cornerstone of why I joined AirBnB. My home is eco- themed with amenities and services for energy conservation, recycling, plastic free and zero-waste planning, landfill GHG reduction, CO2 footprint reduction, water and chemical pollution issues. It’s a lot, but I think I’ve packaged it well in a manageable, relatable, “customer service” green specialty niche package. 

 

Each guest’s stay is helping to underwrite an ecoart and policy “global to local” campaign related to waterway and coastal pollution issues like plastic pollution from urban waste, agricultural nutrient runoff, and GHG carbon dioxide pollution - dissolved as carbonic acid - from burning fossil fuels . The campaign in 2019-2020 will be to use ecoart to interconnect environmental science evidence and creative problem skills for large “global” challenges like the Gulf of Mexico nutrient runoff  “dead zone” from the Mississippi River specifically for “ local” county leaders throughout the major tributaries from Colorado to Louisiana. Partners like the Inland Ocean Coalition and the Healthy Ocean Coalition and more are involved.

 

You can follow along @messages.in.bottles on Instagram. 

 

I’m also the owner of “The Third Arrow,” a Denver based environmental health risk communication and solution strategy advising company. I assist individual, community and business to business corporate social responsibility environmental policy strategy. Here’s a professional link to additional background. [Linkedin link hidden]

 

Let me me know if I can help or share more detail. Regards, Michael [Personal information hidden for safety reasons]

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Hello @Michael2440,

 

Lovely to meet you. Your background sounds super interesting, thank you for getting involved in our discussion here. I am sorry I had to remove your personal information from your post, this is for safety reasons, in line with the Community Center Guidelines.

 

It is great to hear more about your mission which attracted you to Airbnb and to hear how you have brough this into your life as a host. 

 

It is great to hear you are plastic free. Are there any particular things you switched to get to this point?

 

 


--------------------


Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

Morning @Lizzie, I apologize for the delay. I’ve been putting some thought into some of the articles I like and picked one that I thought you might like. https://pin.it/zxxp7tpz5xxlja

 

Going plastic free is an ongoing process of zero-waste planning, substituting “vendors” for guest amenities and refamiliarizing with the municipal and utility services for the home that are informative for guests. Guests don’t need to understand these things, but they have little reminder notes around the house and in the home guidance manual. I can review and edit language about “going plastic free” in your guidance manual if that would help. 

 

My approach thas been to make lower eco-footprint options and plastic free planning part of the theme and details for guests while continuing the conversation when they check in and when they check out. 

 

Here’s the article I mentioned via a UK blogger and Pinterest:  https://pin.it/zxxp7tpz5xxlja 

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

 

HannahyMartín0
Level 4
Puntarenas Province, Costa Rica

Hi!

Nice subject to discuss.

Our Airbnb is beachfront on costarrican pacific coast. When it’s  rainy season , the rivers in the Central Valley rise so much, bringing huge aamounts of trash into our oceans. Every year when the rainy season is over, I make a big beach clean up. Last year I got 6 big bags of it, and we are talking about a hundred yards beachfront property. Imagine how much is out there in the shoreline and in the ocean. Very sad.

i walkways try to encourage our guests not to get one use plastic made articles.

In order to recycle plastic in Costa Rica you have to wash and rinse every single can, jar, bag, etc. We have a recycling container in our house; and ask the guest to follow this instructions. Of course, some of them don’t even clean them so it’s very frustrating to do it myself every time we have a check out. But i did realized that every time I tell the story about the 6 bags of trash, people understand it and make catarsis about it.

We provide 3 or 4 shopping bags so people don’t need to get the plastic bags from the supermarkets. And also leave a few empty glass beer bottles, so guests can just exchange them in the market for filled oones instead of buying cans or disposable ones.

 

Carol678
Level 2
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Hi — I came from St. Helena, Napa Valley where I served on the City Council Sustainability Committee. Here in San Miguel de Allende, recycling is rather different!

My guests appreciate two eight-ounce plastic bottles of water next to their bed (it’s dangerous to have glasses possibly break at night on Mexican cement floors).

A note to guests: “The five-gallon water dispenser will refill your water all week. Please recycle.“ it’s much appreciated.

Helen427
Level 10
Auckland, New Zealand

How many of you have soft plastic recyling at you local supermarkets?

it's common here in New Zealand.


I wish however someone would ensure that hard plastics were returned to country of origin as we have sure been dumped with lots of poor quality imports over the last 30 years since manufacturing was taken offshore.

 

Recycling of Jandals as in rubber footwear thongs are also something that must be addressed

Ben551
Level 10
Wellington, New Zealand

Soft plastic recycling stopped in Wellington over a month ago because it was no longer sustainable.  All they were doing was collecting it, crushing it and sending it to the port for shipping to Malaysia... who we now know are setting fire to it instead of recycling it (per the news).

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

Here's a scary plastic story. When one of my daughters had her 5th birthday party, one of her party guests gave her a doll, the baby doll kind with a hard plastic head and softer plastic body. She took it to bed with her that night. Several hours later, when I was just about to go up to bed myself, she came wandering out of her room clutching the doll. She was really disoriented and talking nonsense, it was very strange- she wasn't a kid who ever woke up after going to sleep, nor did she sleepwalk or talk in her sleep. I could smell these strong toxic plastic fumes coming off the doll. I told her the doll was sick, that she couldn't sleep with it, as it was making her sick, too. I told her we would go buy her a new, healthy doll the next day, which we did. She was fine in the morning. That toxic baby doll went straight into the garbage. I hope it didn't end up in the ocean.

Wende2
Level 10
Church Creek, MD

Hi.......I have recycle bins in the apt, and if people don't use those I'm rooting through to make sure it doesn't go in the garbage.  I too have a glass container in the fridge for guests, no plastic plates or utensils, and I have a large bottle of Dr Teal's Restore & Replenish body wash for my guests, I have a new bottle in the bathroom dresser so my guests can just screw the pump to the new one, should it run out while they're here.  I've noticed some restaurants in my area have started using paper straws, and I've stopped using the straw when the wairtess brings the drinks.  Have you seen the commercial for 4ocean, a huge group that goes around cleaning the shorelines, you can purchase a bracelet made from recycled waste, reasonable price and a great way to help with the cause.

Allison-And-David0
Level 2
Bellingham, WA

I'm have been an Airbnb host for three years now. We also own a sustainability consulting company headquartered in Bellingham, WA. We are working on plastics recycling education and circular economy issues with small and large corporations. Our biggest plastic waste stream with our Airbnb would be shampoo, garbage bags, and cleaning products. We use Grove Collaborative to supply all of our household products. They are B Corp Certified operating on triple-bottom-line principles that take into account your environmental footprint. They stock only sustainable products which makes ordering easy. Become a VIP and they'll ship things to you on a schedule that you determine.