Backpacking involves tons of waste. Just think about when you come home from a trip and dump a giant bag of messy trash right in the garbage, appalled by the amount of waste you created over the course of a single weekend. There are the single-serve meals, dozens of individually wrapped snacks, tiny packets of electrolytes…And almost none of it is recyclable, reusable or compostable. That’s a lot of waste.
So I wanted to see if I could do better. Iike, a lot better. And find out if I could spend three days in the backcountry and create absolutely zero waste. Want to see how I managed? Whether it’s even possible? If I’d do it again and what products exist to make it easier? Read on.
What Does “Zero Waste” Mean?
First things first: What the heck is zero waste? Generally the term refers to products that don’t incorporate any single-use packaging or materials that are intended to be thrown away. Generally those materials are made of plastic and aren’t easily compostable, biodegradable, or recyclable.
Think plastic straws, candy bar wrappers, dried fruit snack packs, jars with that annoying plastic film around the lid, etc.
For example, a bar of soap packaged in a recyclable cardboard box counts as zero-waste, but so, technically, could a small plastic bottle of Castile soap if you intend to refill or reuse the bottle.
A backpacking meal might say it’s in a “recyclable” bag, but you have to wash it out and send it somewhere special to do so, which let’s be honest, most people aren’t gonna do, so it’s not really zero-waste. But a meal packaged in a compostable bag is.
There are whole articles and blogs and websites diving deep into zero waste, so I won’t go too far down that rabbit hole, but consider all this an introduction. Zero waste means items are not in single use packaging and are designed to be easily recycled or composted.
Of course, there’s a caveat. Doing anything, including backpacking, zero waste, isn’t easy. It takes more time, more energy, more planning, and occasionally–though not always–more money. It also requires access. Some of the stuff I’m going to talk about below can only be bought online or at a grocery store with a well-stocked bulk market, which not everyone has access to.
Plus, reusable vessels and items in more environmentally friendly packaging can be more expensive than wasteful alternatives, which can be prohibitive for those on a tight budget.
Fortunately, reducing waste is about doing what you can. You won’t see us flashing a Mason jar that contains all our trash from a year because that’s just not feasible for anyone but the incredibly privileged. So consider this article more about giving you ideas so you can make the changes that ARE feasible, reduce waste where you can, and hey, if you’re able to do all of them…rad. Progress, not perfection, is the goal!
10 Tips for Zero Waste Backpacking
Shop in Bulk
My first tip, and probably the easiest one to do for the most people and one that doesn’t cost any more money, is to hit up your local grocery store’s bulk section and go nuts. I mean literally. Fill up on nuts, seeds, dried fruit, pasta, you name it.
My local bulk section even has dehydrated hummus powder, granola, chia seeds, citric acid, 20 kinds of gummy candy, oatmeal, and more.
So when I’m planning a backpacking trip, I go to town and fill up on everything I think I’ll need. I can get just about all the ingredients required to make my own meals–instant rice, peanut butter powder, broth mix–plus all the snacks and treats I could ever want.
For this trip I stocked up on dried apple rings, spicy dried mango, salt and pepper cashews and more. In fact, most of my snacks came from the bulk section. I’ll get to where the rest came from below.
Use Reusable Storage
Since I’m talking about buying in bulk, did you know that you don’t have to use those crappy single-use plastic bulk or produce bags the grocery store provides? True story. Instead, you can utilize reusable solutions for zero-waste backpacking. I bring lightweight reusable bags with me when I go to the store. Usually mesh ones, but you could bring anything reusable that won’t add significant weight to your bulk order.
I say that because despite my bags having the tare weight printed right on them, no cashier has ever bothered to type that in, so lighter is better.
Then, transfer your bulk items to better packaging when you get home. I have reusable ziptop bags that are great for snacks that need to stay fresh and I’ll toss these in my pack as-is.
You can also use Dyneema stuff sacks or snack bags. We specifically love these ultralight zipper pouches from Hartford Gear. They’re ultralight and waterproof. On this trip I even wrapped a few smaller items in vegan wax wraps, which worked great, or you can save, wash and reuse heavy-duty snack bags.
For smaller things like spices or, say, oatmeal additives, I like to use repurposed film canisters, old contact lens cases, travel shampoo bottles, you name it. I have a whole box full of little vessels I’ve saved over the years for small quantity ingredients.
Make Your Own Meals
Now that you’ve got all these amazing bulk ingredients, make your own meals to move toward your goal of zero waste backpacking. It’s not that hard. I did it for years simply because dehydrated or freeze-dried backpacking meals can be expensive. I mean, we’re talking about dining out dollars, here.
It does take a bit more time and effort to make your own, especially if you want to make sure you’re getting enough calories, fat, carbs and protein to sustain you, but there are tons of recipes out there to give you ideas.
I even wrote a cookbook with some of our faves, like peanut noodles, vegan cheezy rice, and chili. Package ingredients in reusable zip-top bags and then rehydrate them in a heat-safe silicone bag or bowl at camp.
If you have a dehydrator–or a friend who does–you can even dehydrate your own veggies and sauces! Including homemade salsa. My friend made dehydrated salsa from scratch with produce from her garden for this trip. Made a great appetizer.
Make Your Own Snacks
Likewise, you can also make your own snacks in addition to buying them in bulk.
A friend of mine has an apricot tree, so she was kind enough to give me a few pounds, which I turned into fruit leather with my dehydrator. I also dehydrated nectarine slices from a fruit tree in our community garden. You can make both with just an oven on the lowest setting, by the way.
This is an easy way to stock up on snacks, especially if you have access to a garden or fruit and veg that are cheap because they’re in season.
But you don’t have to have a fancy machine to make your own snacks. I also make my own energy bites with ingredients from my local bulk section. (The recipe I use is in that cookbook I mentioned earlier, by the way). You can also make baked energy bars or straight up cookies. I love trail cookies.
Look for Zero Waste Packaging
If making all your own meals, snacks and ingredients seems overwhelming–maybe you have kids, work long hours, are a poor planner or don’t have access to a good bulk section–I have good news: you can still buy zero-waste backpacking meals.
Yes, there are meal and snack brands out there that package their food in zero-waste packaging.
For meals, I love Farm to Summit, which makes tons of backpacking meals–including vegan and gluten free options–and packs them in biodegradable bags that can be burned, trashed or thrown in your backyard compost and will biodegrade! Amazing.
Yum Pouch, a Michigan-based brand that makes nutritious vegan meals, also uses compostable packaging. They offer fewer total options, but are another excellent choice.
Just remember that most compostable products need to be commercially composted in order to break down quickly. They won’t decompose in your backyard. Whereas biodegradable packaging will. If your city doesn’t offer curbside compost pickup–most don’t–check to see if there’s a place you can drop it off nearby. You can find one on litterless.com.
There are also snack brands that utilize reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging. Shar snacks, which makes trail mix in cardboard tubes, is one. Farm to Summit makes dehydrated sriracha powder in a reusable tin. Look for products that come in compostable or reusable packaging–think cardboard, metal, etc.–instead of plastic bags and you can greatly reduce your waste.
Up Your Coffee Game
OK, so I’ve talked about food, but coffee is just as important–maybe more important? Or whatever you like to drink in the morning or evening.
If that’s tea, you’re in luck, because that’s easier to find in paper pouches and cardboard boxes. But coffee can be tricky, especially if you like it with milk and sugar, because instant coffee and pretty much all single-serve packets of powdered creamer are impossible to recycle.
Fortunately, there are options! My favorite might be the oat milk latte from Farm to Summit, which is creamy and just a touch sweet. They have a dairy latte mix, too, and both are in compostable packaging. At night, I’m obsessed with their golden milk latte, which is caffeine-free, spicy and delightful.
If you’re more of a black coffee fan, Coulee Coffee makes fully compostable pre-dosed pour-over packets so you can just whip one out, add hot water, and you’re done! It’s pretty good, too. And not just for camp coffee.
You can also buy instant coffee in larger containers, which are sometimes made of glass, which is recyclable. Just dose it out into smaller reusable vessels before your trip.
Hydration
But a hiker cannot live on coffee alone, so make sure your hydration is dialed. And more sustainable.
A lot of ultralight backpackers like to use Smart Water bottles until they basically fall apart, but those are still wasteful and, frankly, it’s not healthy to keep smashing and reusing that cheap plastic that was designed to be single use. You’re drinking a lot of microplastics.
Fortunately, just about any reusable water bottle will do as a more eco-friendly replacement. But I do like my CNOC system. I have two one-liter bottles: one for clean water, one for dirty, plus a Sawyer Squeeze–which can filter water for up to ten years–and a One Bottle Hydration system hose (read our review here), which is better than a hydration reservoir for backpacking in my opinion.
As for electrolytes, well, the best option I’ve found is to buy it in bulk packaging to reduce all that single-use trash. OR! Make your own! I bought salt, citric acid for tart flavor, and sugar for sweetness from our local bulk section and mixed it to taste.
Buy Eco-Friendly First Aid Products
Let’s talk about first aid. Now, this is one area where some waste is OK, because we’re talking about health and safety here. Staying free from infection and being able to treat injuries in the outdoors is way more important than eliminating a few gauze wrappers.
That said, there are certainly places you can make some swaps to reduce waste in your first aid kit.
For example, I buy Patch bamboo adhesive bandages because they’re made of more earth-friendly materials and the paper backing and wrappers are recyclable.
I’ve permanently ditched moleskin for leukotape, which is stickier, works better on blisters, and this stuff is technically made of tree fiber, though it’s not really a “natural” product after all the processing. But there is less packaging and you can even get it in tiny rolls for backpacking.
Another thing I keep in my first aid kit is a Heat It insect bite relief tool. It plugs into your phone and uses heat to destroy the itch of mosquito bites. No really, it works. And because it’s endlessly reusable it can replace many wasteful single-use packages of itch-relief cream.
As for other stuff, if you’re building your own first aid kit instead of buying a pre-packaged one, you can opt for products that come in more paper packaging than plastic.
Build a Better Bathroom Ritual
Next up, everybody’s favorite subject: going to the bathroom outdoors. Because human waste can require a fair amount of, well, waste. So the most responsible thing is to choose reusable products when you can and responsible ones when you can’t.
For example, I’m a person who squats to pee. So I use a reusable, anti-microbial pee cloth from Kula Cloth. Which I recommend to anyone and everyone else who squats to pee. (By the way, we have a limited edition custom design! Find it here!)
Similarly, if you’re a person who has a period, reusable products like silicone menstrual cups, reusable pads from Kula Cloth or reusable period underwear exist. Read more about how to have a better period outdoors in this article. If that’s not your jam, choose cleaner period products made of organic cotton, then grab a Your Yuckies bag kit, which makes packing out used products sanitary and discreet.
And instead of toilet paper for what I’ll call “solid waste” I recommend buying a bulk bag of compressed wipes from Pact Outdoors. They break down faster than toilet paper when you bury them in a cat hole, especially in conjunction with their innovative mycelium tabs, weigh nothing, and turn into a 9×9 wet wipe with a few drops of water.
Alternatively–or additionally–you can pack a bidet. This one from Igneous screws onto the end of any standard bottle, including the CNOC I mentioned earlier, thus turning it into a portable ultralight bidet.
Personal Hygiene
Related, but different, is personal hygiene. Hand washing, personal care, that sort of thing.
Now, you can just buy a travel-size bottle of castile soap and refill it when it’s empty. But Summit Suds makes ultralight biodegradable soap powder in compostable packaging that weighs less, so I’m a big fan of that.
And when I brush my teeth, I use Canary toothpaste tabs, which also come in zero-waste packaging.
If I want to wash my face, I can use that same Castile soap or put some face wash in a small reusable vessel from home instead of buying a travel-size option. And I already buy zero-waste lotion and lip balm, but if you don’t, again, put some from your regular tube in a smaller vessel.
Just don’t forget about sunscreen. I wrote a whole article about our favorite reef-safe sunscreens, but Utu, which packages in reusable and recyclable metal, and Attitude, which is in cardboard, are both go-to zero-waste options at my house.
Bottom Line
But OK, this might sound like a lot. So after doing all of this once, would I do it again?
Yeah. Absolutely.
Did it mean I carried slightly more weight than usual because of all the reusable bags? A little.
Did it mean I had to seek out specialty zero waste items like toothpaste tabs and soap? Sure, but I’m already converting most of my personal care items at home to zero waste, so it wasn’t that big a deal.
And sure, it took a little more planning and creativity to find substitutions for popular items like electrolytes and coffee, but I like a challenge.
Making some of my own snacks takes a bit more time, but when I spread it over several weeks leading up to the trip it felt like no trouble at all.
But more importantly, it was worth it. I came home from the trip, emptied my bag, and didn’t have to go through every pocket looking for 35 individual snack wrappers. I didn’t have a huge bag of plastic meal garbage that I was depressed to have to throw away. And it frankly felt like paying more respect to nature, which I’m kinda obsessed with and pretty passionate about protecting.
So yeah, none of this felt like a sacrifice, even as I peered at the backpacking snack shelf in the pantry and looked at all the tasty things I already own that I wouldn’t be able to bring. It felt right. Like this is what we should all be doing all the time and it sucks it’s not easier and there aren’t more accessible zero-waste backpacking options. So if you’re an outdoor brand…hey! Less trash in your packaging, please!
But what do you think? Are any of these doable for you? Did we offer any innovative or helpful solutions? Think you’ll adopt a few of them? Seriously, let us know in the comments. This is an important conversation.
Then make less trash outdoors and wander on.
