It’s that time of year again. In just a few short weeks, college students, high school students and even a great number of high school students’ parents will embark on a tradition known as spring break. Whether spring break in your world is a wild trip to Daytona Beach with your college buddies or a family trip to a calmer, more child-appropriate location, this break can bring with it a lot of excess and waste. Here are some tips for keeping spring break a little less wasteful and a little more sane!
Cheaper Isn’t Always Better
The deals at spring break can be completely mind-blowing. Entire vacation packages for under $500 a person to exotic and, more importantly, warm locations. However, everything has a price. When you purchase a cheap vacation, it means a number of things, including that the workers at your resort are probably being paid cheap (often illegal) wages, your resort isn’t recycling or using sustainable practices and even that the resort itself may be wasting energy and resources. If you still choose to take advantage of cheap spring break travel packages, that’s certainly your decision and right. Just please go into it aware that you’re likely paying to have certain ethical and environmental factors overlooked.
Avoid the Cruise
Cruises are some of the least environmentally friendly vacations that you can take. In fact, the environmental damage done by taking a cruise is actually three times that of flying on a Boeing 747 if you compare exact twenty-four hour periods of travel for each form of transport. Again, there are often amazing cruise packages offered during spring break, but consider the damage that you’re probably doing (and the waste that gets generated on a typical cruise) before you sign on to that package deal.
Pay Attention and Be Diligent
On any vacation, it’s easy to not pay attention to your actions and the waste that you may be generating because, well, it’s easy to say “I’m on vacation, I don’t live like this all of the time.” Now, multiply the waste that you’ve created by that attitude by all of the people that you see at the resort or hotel where you’re staying. It all starts with individual actions! Make responsible choices about waste and excess specifically because you’re on vacation!
Spring break should be a time to escape the cold, relax and cut loose. That doesn’t necessarily also mean that it has to be a time of waste and decadence though! Make wise decisions this spring break season about sustainability and postconsumer living.
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