Chances are you’re getting ready to wrap up your holiday travels if you haven’t done so already. College students that headed home for break will flock back towards their college campuses while families gathering in distant places will spread back out across the world.

You will, inevitably, spend a great deal of time in the airport at some point over the next week or two. While we all have the best of intentions – arriving early, making it safely through security, and having our plane take off on time – we’re often disappointed with our experiences.

Those of us with shorter flights might not find the need to prepare for a green airport experience. After all, we’re only supposed to be there for an hour or two, right? Then tragedy strikes – the layover you thought would be brief turns into a debacle lasting anywhere from hours to days. What’s one to do?

Eating to Save the Earth

If you had known you’d have to find yourself a meal you probably would have packed it yourself, but once your preplanned snacks run out you’ll likely need to find a place to get something decent to eat. Health concerns aside, eating at a fast food joint is one of the quickest ways to create unnecessary waste. Instead of heading to the nearest fast food stand, consider finding yourself a sit down restaurant. If that is not an option a simple deli or newsstand will suffice.

Most sit down restaurants tend to use reusable baskets or real plates to serve your meal instead of wrapping each of your items in a plastic wrapper or cardboard box. You can enjoy your meal knowing that your meal is not adding pounds of waste to the garbage bins.

If a sit down meal is not within your budget (or if you notice strange serving habits at the sit down restaurants within your airport), you might want to head towards the nearest deli or newsstand. Most will wrap your sandwiches in a single piece of paper or plastic, reducing the amount of waste you create.

Hanging Out in the Airport

There’s no way of knowing how long you’ll have to wait in the departure terminal and staring at the planes on the runway for an indefinite amount of time will quickly lose its entertainment value. If you end up buying a newspaper or magazine, be sure to recycle it when you’re done. By recycle, I mean giving it to another traveler or simply leaving it behind when you’re done. Someone in the same situation will be incredibly grateful for this little act of kindness.

Avoid the duty free shops while you’re there unless, of course, you had already planned to make a purchase. If you need a toothbrush, go for it, but avoid buying toothpaste and other unnecessary items. Travel sized things are wasteful in their packaging and your teeth will survive on a good water scrub until you can get to your suitcase. If you buy a bottle of water save the container and get your refills from the nearest water fountain.

Traveling To and From the Airport

If you should happen to find yourself in a situation in which an overnight hotel stay is necessary, do as much as possible to reduce your carbon footprint. Take public transportation to your hotel instead of renting a car or hailing a taxi. You aren’t going to be in town long, anyway, so there’s no need to waste your time or money on a rental car. If you do venture out into the unknown, walk or take the local public transportation system to your destination.

An Eco-Friendly Hotel Stay

Hopefully you don’t find yourself stuck in a situation where an overnight or multiple-night stay is necessary, but there’s no way for you to control a blizzard or airport strike either so you should be prepared. If it becomes necessary to find a hotel room for the evening try to obtain the most environmentally friendly room possible.

Some hotels have resorted to renewable energy while others are working hard to reduce waste. Don’t use the sample soaps and shampoos that were left in your room unless you don’t have anything of your own thanks to missing luggage or some other mishap. Cut back on energy waste by turning off the extra lights when you leave the room, turning the AC or heat down, and by not allowing hotel staff to change your sheets daily.

If you’re really stuck, search the HotelClub database in advance to get an idea of what hotels are in the areas you’ll be passing through!

No one wants or plans to get stuck in an airport for longer than an hour or two, and while planning in advance would be best it’s simply not always possible. Use your best judgment and you’ll find dozens of ways to have an environmentally friendly stay in the airport – whether you wanted to be there or not!

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