Reduce our Waste Vacation Travel to France

Anyone who knows me knows that I love France and in particular, love Provence.  What’s not to love: the weather, the vines and beautiful countryside:

 

Unfortunately, in the past, France was not really there when it came to recycling and composting.  I am pleased to report that things are changing.  In March of 2018, there was the “Semaine National du Compostage” (link here: Tous au Compost) and recycling was evident in every town that we visited, including the airport:

It used to be that everything went into the garbage and now recycling is commonplace across France.   In Nice, I even noticed a sign for a number of  eco-events.   They even had one about zero waste:

Nice! It is encouraging that a focus on the environment is becoming more mainstream, just like in North America.

One of the best things about France are the open air markets.  These markets are places where local farmers can sell their freshly cultivated fruits and vegetables and display them in an attractive setting, like this market in the town of Nyons in the Drome:

Everyone in the town and neighboring area goes to shop at the market.  You can buy everything at the market.   We saw locally made cheeses with such an astonishing variety.  It leaves North Americans like us with our jaws hanging open:  fresh chèvre, aged chèvre with varying ages, flavored chèvres like Banon chevre.  We only have two or three kinds of chèvres at my local cheese shop.  A large majority of food is presented at the stalls without packaging and it was easy to ask the vendors to put items like cheese or chicken or fish into my reusable containers.  I was also pleasantly surprised at the level of support that I received.  Many vendors congratulated our initiative.

We like to get a roast chicken for lunch from the market:

With a green salad, the poulet fermier, fries and rose, there is no better lunch.

Our afternoon plans after lunch, napping by the pool.

I was also pleased to see that the grocery stores now have bulk sections for people like me.  A man at the Petit Casino in Vaison la Romaine told me that it was obligatory for stores to have a bulk section.

Fantastic!  Zero waste lifestyle is alive and well in France.

Unfortunately, plastic water bottles are still heavily used in France.  While we had reusable bottles with us, we were unable to keep the needed amount of water to support the 40 deg C heat wave.  Yes, even we had to buckle and buy a plastic water bottle.  That being said, we went to the lovely wine village of Gigondas to fill up our water with potable water:

 

Reusing the water bottle helped reduced my guilt about buying a plastic water bottle.  The quality of the water from the fountain was excellent and we made several trips to the fountain to refill it and our reusable bottles.  Overall, it was a great way to reduce our waste!

While we were in Gigondas, we stopped for some wine tasting:

I think that this counts as zero waste wine.  Or at least, that’s how we felt when we left.

While it is difficult (if not impossible) to be completely zero waste when you travel, we made the best of it and looked to reduce our waste and share our experiences with others.  Hopefully, we inspired some people to try doing things a little differently going forward.

Challenge for the Week:  When you travel for your vacation, how do you reduce your waste?    Share your best ideas with your friends and family and don’t forget to let me know too!