Reducing our Plastic Use
The amount of disposable plastic in the environment is a worldwide problem. Despite the best efforts of recycling, a lot of plastic still becomes litter, either in the countryside or in the sea. There are lots of things we can all do to prevent this happening, and we're taking a big look at the plastic we use at Large Outdoors on our trips.
With this in mind, here are two lists. The first are things we can all do when on our weekends to reduce plastic use, and which you can start doing now. The second is what we're doing to help reduce the plastic use of Large Outdoors in general.
What you can do:
Bring a lunch box rather than using a sandwich bag or cling film! We'd like to encourage all our guests to do this, as we slowly phase out providing sandwich bags over the next months. This is one of our biggest uses of plastic and can easily be solved.
Don't use throw-away hot drinks containers when you're driving to/from trips! Nearly everywhere now sells reusable cups, and if you want one we're also selling Large Outdoors hot drinks cups!
Help us recycle! 99% of the accommodation we use has recycling facilities. Your trip host will point these out, so please use them. If in doubt, ask! For the one or two places that don't provide recycling facilities, please take items home and recycle them yourselves, or take them to the nearest depot.
What we are doing:
Over the next few months we will be phasing out disposable sandwich bags and encouraging all guests to bring lunch boxes.
When we get food delivered to hostels we request that the supplier delivers the food without bags. When we have to use bags we reuse them, and recycle them where that is available.
We always look at what food we buy and how packaging can be reduced. For example the freshly cooked and sliced ham we provide uses a lot less packaging than pre-prepared sliced ham! (It's also a lot tastier).
We will inform all guests about recycling facilities at hostels and encourage their use.
Reusable Large Outdoors hot drinks cups are available!
We're always open to suggestions, so if you have any ideas about how we can all reduce waste feel free to post on the Large Outdoors Facebook group. Thank you for your help in reducing our overall plastic use!
