05/21/2026
I’ve been living a low/zero waste lifestyle for over a decade and realize that so many things that make sense to me might not make sense to others..and that’s ok. But, so much of what we do at Eco Inspired is help provide insight on how making small, but impactful changes matter. Being more deliberate on how to navigate through this world to make it a better place for us and its inhabitants is so incredibly important!
So, with that being said, I’m going to share with you how I travel (via car) low waste while on vacation at the beach!
-Coffee grounds are compost gold, so instead of using single use packets, we bring our own coffee setup and called ahead to ask the motel if we can dump them in their garden (the answer was yes!).
-I haven’t owned a trash can or bought plastic trash bags in probably 15 years. Because we compost food scraps at home we make very little trash. Most of the time our trash bags are random bags found on the ground. A bag is a bag!
- ALWAYS bring our own hand and body soap (love !), shampoo and conditioner bars and dish soap. The motel had refillable options, I just prefer to use the products I know and love
- Did you know cigarette butts make up an estimated 32% of litter cleaned from beaches annually? I will never understand why the earth seems to be some smokers ashtray.
- the place we stayed had a kitchenette, but I always bring a small cutting board, some utensils, and a sharp kitchen knife because of microplastics. Plastic cutting boards leach microplastics into your food. Yuck
-We stay right around mile marker 9 in Nags Head because our favorite juice and vegan spot, is within walking distance. The owner Amy is amazing and the food is perfection.
While this may seem crazy to you to bring this much stuff...is there somethign that you currently do that could swap out to create less waste? Let us know in the comments!
