Art and Walk goes eco-friendly 2019

Nowadays everybody talks about the environment and being Eco-friendly. About how bad plastic is and that we all should recycle more. About the pollution in our sky and ocean. About how we can make a change. We couldn’t agree more.

Art and Walk wants to play a part in this change. We do our best in being Eco-friendly by using less plastic and eventually we wish to use no plastic at all. We do ocean clean-ups while diving and organize beach clean-ups. Also don’t forget how Eco-friendly walking and hiking is when you think of tourism. We don’t drive a car when we can transport ourselves by bicycle. Why should we drive with the car to the supermarket if we can transport groceries in a funky flower basket on the front of my bike and a big box with an Art and Walk drawing on Thom’s bike? The extra plus here is that it’s also better for our health to ride a bike instead of driving a car, which is a pretty cool plus if you ask me!

In Greece the biggest use of plastic goes through ordering frappes or freddo cappuccinos. You know, those plastic cups with plastic straws and nice cold Greek coffee. We have a re-usable cup and a straw that we can bring with us instead. Our problem solved.

Something else we noticed about plastic is inside our own kitchen. Whether we are wrapping some leftovers or packing a snack for during a hike, there needs to be some kind of wrapping. For this to be Eco-friendly we found the perfect solution called Golidlocks Wraps: an Eco-friendly alternative to plastic wraps. They create wraps out of beeswax and I must say that even the scent of beeswax is delicious.

There are so many items you can swap for something more Eco-friendly. We thought about using less plastic with our tooth brushes and paint brushes. Now we have bamboo brushes. Many people wonder why bamboo is better than any other kind of material. Did you know that bamboo is 100 per cent biodegradable? So there you go. While you’re on Karpathos during your holidays make sure to get bamboo tooth brushes for yourselves too. You can get them at the Deli Villani shop in Pigadia, where we buy them too.

We’ve already spoken about using bikes instead of cars and having bamboo or beeswax instead of plastic. What about shopping? When you go shopping on Karpathos you need to buy plastic bottles of water or you’d have to bring your bottles to the source on the street and refill your water bottles there. We have found another solution. We installed a filter on our water system so that we can have clean and fresh water any time from the tap. No need to buy plastic bottles anymore. We use glass bottles to store the clean tap-water in our fridge for when we want some really cold water, but otherwise the tap-water is also fine on room temperature.

Another thing you have to shop for is food. Okay, we can’t really start a farm from our house but what we can do is grow a few plants and have veggies from our own garden! That way we don’t need to use plastic bags like you normally do when you weigh the vegetables at the counter. When we do need to buy veggies or anything else, we use our own cotton bags so there is no need for plastic bags from the shops. Saves us a few pennies too.

Even though you might need to use some items in your daily life that are not entirely Eco-friendly yet, it’s still good to start with the things you can to be more environment-friendly. Hopefully we gave you some inspiration with this blog post to be more green yourself.

Do you have any tips or suggestions for having a more green lifestyle and being Eco-friendly? Please let us know in the comments below.