Zero Waste Hiking

Since Plastic Free July in 2018 I’ve become so much more aware of the waste that we create on a daily basis, as well as on a “special occasion” basis. We’ve just had a 3 day hiking trip and it seemed only natural that I take on the challenge of reducing our overall waste for this outdoors adventure too. After all, we’re spending time outside because we love being in nature, so surely it makes the most sense to do what we can to limit the impact and waste produced by these activities.

My first instinct was to head to Google and to my usual favourite hiking blogs to find out what zero waste food I could take, but their advice on what to pack food-wise for a multiday hike seemed to only have suggestions that include mounds of packaging and plastic. Think freeze dried back country meals, individually portioned packs of cereal, snack bars and crackers. So I knew it was time to take things into my own hands and over a few weeks started to come up with ways that I can do this better – to take healthier, more whole food with me that would also reduce the amount of waste that we’d end up taking home and sending to landfill.

This is what my previous hiking food would typically look like. Literally everything is packaged in plastic except for the two tins of tuna, which while recyclable, still create immediate waste.

Food that we took along for the trip included:

Breakfasts

Quick oats with dried apple, sultanas and vanilla pea protein powder. All sourced from our local packaging free store and packaged in double servings (his and hers per day) in a reusable and stackable container. Thanks to Jimbos pet food. Their containers are lightweight, reusable and surprisingly durable!

Lunches

On the first day we stopped at a local bakery for fresh bread rolls (in a paper bag) on our way to the national park. On the track we made a lunch of fresh rolls, cheese, salami and a delicious juicy nectarine.

For days two and three we made some seedy crackers (recipe care of Linda English Nutrition coach) and had them with cheese and salami.

We took cheddar cheese which was our “worst” item for packaging because we’re yet to find somewhere local that we can buy cheese from without the plastic. It is however a good source of protein and fat, and it lasted very well on a 3 day summer hike without any special care or refridgeration. Our local Countdown store happily packaged their deli salami into a reusable container for us. This also lasted really well without needing to be kept cool.

Dinners

We only needed to have 2 dinners on our hike. For day one we finely chopped some fairly resilient veggies (capsicum, red onion, cauliflower and broccoli) and just packed them in the middle of our packs to try to keep them away from the heat. At dinner time we gave the veggies a quick fry with a bit of leftover butter from our lunch and enjoyed them with some couscous and a herb mixture that we took from home. There is nothing better than fresh veggies after a challenging day of hiking!

We knew that fresh veggies might not last well for 2 days of summer hiking so we borrowed a dehydrator from our amazing neighbours and dehydrated a huge batch of fresh veggies. We cooked these up on the second night, along with some bulgar wheat and another spice mix that we brought from home. Our learning from this though is that next time we’ll rehydrate the veggies and the bulgar wheat separately and cover them completely in water and drain them before mixing together. We loved our dinner though and it was tasty and healthy so it’s still 100% a success!

Snacks

Because it’s not possible to go hiking without a ridiculously huge array of snacks, we took the following with us – mostly either from the packaging free store or made ourselves.

• Scroggin mix (from Countdown in a plastic bag that we’ve reused many times over)
• Carrot sticks (unpeeled and chopped – they lasted 3 days with no problems)
• Boiled eggs (we ate these on the first afternoon and second morning)
• Home made brownies (such a decadent treat and they travelled really well)
• Dried whole bananas (from Good For Store)
• Banana chips with peanut butter for dipping them in (Good For Store and Pics PB in the best reusable glass jars – my pantry is full of them)

Other essentials

• Teabags (I would prefer loose leaf but for hiking, bags are great and can go into your home compost). We usually have milk but for this trip we tried having our tea without milk and while it was different it was perfectly fine.
• Remember to pack some salt, pepper, herbs & spices for your dinners. We just used small reusable sauce containers (we tend to hoard these types of things when we get them accidentally/unavoidably and it’s great to be able to give them multiple uses).
• Instead of the usual baby wipes – we took a face towel for our daily stream wash downs. We didn’t take any soap but just having a scrub with a face towel got rid of enough of the days dirt. Give it a good rinse and it’ll be ready for the next day. The towel dried in the sun in the evening so we weren’t carrying extra weight from it being wet.
• Hiking got me into using hankies – such a great idea and so practical! They’re not going to fall apart or get forgotten and put through a wash cycle to end up splattered all over your clothes. I recommend giving them a go.
• Take a lightweight air/watertight container to keep your compostables in. While these items will decompose eventually in nature, they can attract vermin which in turn will also destroy our native flora and fauna. For this hike we took a ziplock bag that we emptied at home and washed to reuse.

I had lot of ideas of food to take in the end, after thinking that it wouldn’t be possible at all, so here are a few items not listed above:

• Other hardy fruit (apples, oranges, nectarines) that will travel well. Otherwise, dried fruit is another good option.
• Biltong or jerky if you can source it without the plastic packaging.
• Any home made baking that will travel well – think cookies, crackers, muffins and bread rolls.
• Home made granola or muesli to have with chopped fruit for breakfast. Milk or yogurt isn’t essential and remember add plenty of nuts and seeds for extra energy and nutrition.
• Boiled eggs with pre cooked bacon for breakfast, you can eat these as they are or to make them extra filling you could put them on bread rolls. I’d recommend eating this on days one and two.
• A variety of dishes could be made with couscous including a salad with veggies to prepare on the hike that will keep out of the fridge – red onion, capsicum, broccoli, carrot, sultanas, almonds, hard cheese, pine nuts, pesto. You could do all the chopping at home and store everything in one container to save hassle at the hut or campsite, plus you will reduce the amount of compost that you need to pack out.

How to package food

• Honey wraps are handy for non-meat items that you don’t need to keep un-squished.
• Brown paper bags – these can go into your compost bag to help absorb moisture when they’re empty too.
• Lightweight lunch boxes or takeaway containers that will stack into each other as you empty them. We used Jimbos pet food containers. We’re yet to go zero waste for our pet food and these containers last really well – we use ours over and over!
• Ziplock plastic bags that you can and will reuse once you’re home. We’re still using up our old supplies of ziplock bags and we’re looking into alternatives such as the silicon bags but for now we’d like to use ours thoroughly before we throw them away.
• String or fabric produce bags are really handy to carry sturdy foods in your pack and they’re a great way of keeping things together.
• We used dry bags to package any food that we were worried about leaking or spreading oil around, such as peanut butter, butter and cheese.

I also felt that it was really important to adhere to the “Buy Nothing New” values for this trip. It’s easy to get carried away with getting new toys and accessories in pursuit of reducing your waste but that’s very counter-intuitive. Try to use what you have or borrow anything additional that you might need. If you do need to buy something, do your research to make sure that you’re purchasing ethically and sustainably manufactured items that will hopefully last a lifetime. Borrowing the food dehydrator from our neighbours is a good example of this.

My Why

For every change that you make you need to have a good reason, otherwise you’re not going to be committed to sticking to it. My why is because I can see how our planet is being crushed under the weight of our waste. We hike to appreciate beautiful natural environments, and so often there is litter along the way. On top of the issue of litter, there’s the issue of areas being mined, deforested and destroyed to satiate our need for more things. I’d love to see more of our natural resources preserved for the enjoyment of future generations. I’m determined to prove that with a little foresight we can still have these experiences without sacrificing comfort, health or safety, while at the same time reducing our impact on the planet. We may find alternatives that are better than our usual go-to conveniences and do a little more to be sustainable along the way.