Make air travel eco friendlier
The search for industries which use huge amounts of plastic yields a few answers 35,000 feet above sea level . Airlines !
Airlines are notorious users of single-use plastic and paper – cups , food containers , cutlery , tissues . Practices established decades / years ago continue unquestioned . Some years ago a security scare caused airlines to switch from metal cutlery to plastic cutlery (which is frankly pointless . Metal cutlery posed no security risk ). Some airlines pack the blankets in plastic . To use the blanket the plastic has to be ripped apart . Needless to say this trashed piece of plastic will be immortalized somewhere on the planet.
The usage of plastic has reached new heights with an airline packing the in-flight catalogue and entertainment guide in a plastic cover that needs to be ripped apart to read the magazines. Entirely pointless and wasteful.
Here are somethings airlines can IMMEDIATELY do -
- switch to metal cutlery
- switch to ceramic or paper cups and dishes
- ditch packing the blankets , magazines in plastic
- encourage passengers to carry a reusable bottle in which the steward can fill water from a jug or at least hand out a bottle per passenger and keep refilling their bottles instead of getting a plastic glass every time someone asks for water.
- shift to bio degradable alternatives to plastic
- ask passengers for ideas on how to be more environ friendly , share information with passengers on their initiatives so far
The plastic generated chokes our planet . Food heated in plastic containers poses health risks . This gets multiplied for frequent travellers.
The next time you take a flight pl take a few mins to fill out the feedback form to the airline asking them to move to zero/minimal plastic (listing some solutions as mentioned above). Since airlines are not making the shift of their own accord we can and should use our voice as the customers to ask them to be eco friendly.
Your feedback counts . Pl choose to make a difference.
In relation to this I would also like to quote an example of the Indian Railways. Whenever you travel by AC class 1,2 or 3 they provide you with blankets and sheets all packed in a reusable paper bag. Some passengers are sensible enough to fold and keep the bag so that it can be reused while others just throw it as a waste. It is a nice initiative by the Indian Railways, but people in the end have to make the right choices.
This post is like a problem with the solutions. Will surely affect my feedback form the next time I fill it.