Vanlife sustainability - how to travel more eco friendly

Is it contradictory if we, too, want to reduce our ecological footprint when traveling as a self-driver? I think the increasing demand for still quite expensive dry-separating toilets shows that there are many travelers among us who are concerned about their own footprint and sustainability when traveling.

The calculation of which traveler leaves the larger ecological footprint, the package tour, those on a cruise, the individual flying tourist or we self-drivers - I leave this rather idle discussion to others.

What is certain is that in everyday life, even outside of traveling, we always have the option of using resources as sparingly as possible. That we can use products that are more easily biodegradable, that require less energy in production.

Here we can learn from those who have been away from camping sites and disposal stations for a long time - and of course also have to wash up there, want to shower and also put the deodorant used down the drain or directly on the ground.

These biodegradable and natural products can be found in well-stocked outdoor shops. Drugstores and online stores or of course online.

There are toothpaste, deodorants, shower gel, laundry detergent, detergent, shampoo, shaving foam, aftershave and soaps that are biodegradable without leaving any residues, amd with producers who pay attention to ecological production. 

So why not use such products for the basic equipment of the touring vehicle? Who knows, maybe individual products will prove themselves so well that we want to use them in our everyday life outside of traveling?

Even classic motorhome travelers can operate their chemical toilet with a microbiological toilet additive instead of the chemical club.

On trips around the world you will find that the products cannot be bought everywhere in this quality and then a classic deodarant roller finds its way back into the travel vehicle, but we don't have to start that way.

But no matter where we are, we can try to minimize the use of plastics. Fabric shopping bags, reusable bags and cornstarch toilet / trash bags.

For me, the careful treatment of nature is not a contradiction in terms of our form of travel. Since we cook ourselves, prepare tea and coffee in or on the travel vehicle - we generate significantly less waste compared to a city trip with all the PET drinking containers, cardboard coffee mugs with cups - which can never be completely avoided on such trips.

Anyone who goes to the butcher instead of buying the steaks at the supermarket will quickly find out that these bulky vacuum packs produce a lot more rubbish compared to "butcher's wax paper", and that the butcher can usually vacuum seal it in a much more space-saving way.

We can already avoid a lot of unnecessary waste when shopping. We can decide if we buy beer in glas bottlers, or in aluminum can, as example. Here I still will have to use can`s because of the weight and used storage with a small 4x4 rv vehicle - but I try to save the resources at another place. 

I like many of those eco friendly travel / vanlife / overlanding suggestions I did found in Mary`s article: https://bearfoottheory.com/eco-friendly-van-life-sustainability/

How do you handle the issue? Which products do you use, which ones are particularly suitable?

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