Growing up in San Diego you generally avoid the beaches during the major holidays because it is packed and takes luck and ages to find parking. While Labor Day is not the worst it’s still no exception. As I mentioned in my Plastic-Free Basics post, 8 of the top 10 items picked up at beach clean ups are single-use food and beverage packaging items. So, if you’re headed to the beach be sure to dispose of your items correctly or better yet, pack items that don’t require disposal!

We are taking a small road trip for the holiday weekend and I’ve packed all our favorite snacks without any of the plastic-packaging. In my college years when we would take frequent trips to Las Vegas, I loved stopping at a gas station for gummy worms and a bag of Sour Cream and Cheddar Ruffles (mmm…processed cheesy goodness). Now, I’m a little healthier but I still want a crunch and some sweets. So, I bring my reusable produce bags to the bulk section of my local grocery store and stock up.

When shopping in the bulk section, I usually snap a photo of the price tag with the 4 or 5-digit SKU number instead of writing it down on the twist ties the store provides. It’s small, but to me, waste is still waste! If you’ve never shopped in the bulk section, the cashier needs this code to bring up the right item in the register.

I usually grab vegetable chips, smoky trail mix, something chocolate, and gummy bears. Does anyone else bite the head off of gummy bears instead of popping the whole thing in your mouth? Why is that so satisfying? Poor gummy bear. Anyways, as I’m packing these items for the car, I pack a divided tin for my oldest daughter and pack larger sorted containers for the adults.

Yes, I know, some of these are plastic.

For me, there’s a hierarchy of plastic. First step is to get rid of all the single-use plastics since this is wasteful, uses energy and resources in its extraction and production, and causes harm to the environment when disposed of. Second is reducing and/or eliminating cheaper multi-use plastic items like toothbrushes and milk bottles. Lastly, replacing any remaining durable plastic items such as these food containers.

So, there are still many plastic items in my house and while I would love to replace them all, simply throwing them away when they are still usable would also be wasteful.

As a caveat to this I will say that I never store any greasy or hot items in plastic and I never heat plastic in the microwave. Chemicals such as BPA (bisphenol A) used in the manufacturing of plastic can leach into your food when you heat it up or the fat in your greasy food can pull it out of the plastic. So, only store dry foods in plastic.

What are your favorite road trip snacks and how do you get them plastic-free?