Zero-waste business travel

TL;DR (for non-millenials: “Summary”):

When you’re traveling for business, bring these 5 things with you, and you’ll be able to nearly eliminate your day-to-day business trip waste:

1. Stainless-steel water bottle

2. Coffee thermos

3. Metal fork

4. Metal spoon

5. Napkin

Optional:

1. A few small, light, reusable bags and containers

Coffee

I don’t have to travel very often for work, but every time I do, I’m stunned by the sheer amount of waste I see all around me. Every day, over 2.25 BILLION cups of coffee are consumed world-wide (according to this 2002 study, so the numbers have increased substantially since then). What’s the big deal with that? Well, setting aside issues involved in production and transportation (for a different post… :), if you get your coffee to-go in a “paper” cup, those cups are NOT recyclable, because they’re lined with plastic – they all end up going to the landfill.

In…