I’m traveling today, so I’m thinking a lot about airports. I’ve always wished that airports were more fun- like, there could be a climbing wall, or a slide or something (actually, I saw a slide installed at an airport in Europe as part of a guerrilla marketing campaign, so there’s hope!). But today I’ve been thinking more about how they can be greener. We all know that airplane travel is one of the most impactful things that someone can do on the Earth, that it is a gigantic part of your carbon footprint- like this is the arch, and everything else you do is the toes. But there are countless ways to make the act of flying greener without waiting around for bio- to make it into jet fuel. Here are a few thoughts:

ON THE PLANE:

1. The beverage cart. Can you really not afford to give people a whole can of soda or juice? A whole bottle of water? We are paying you hundreds of dollars to fly the friendly skies, and you get a 5 oz. cup of something. But even more than being cheap, this is the kind of thing that creates double the waste. All those 5 oz. cups end up in the trash, And all those little napkins they hand out. Just give people a can. Skip the cups and the napkins. It will not cost any more. And it will net out zero waste, as long as you recycle the cans.
2. PROVIDE LITERATURE. If there is one thing airplanes are missing, it’s something good to read if you forget your own. That skymall catalog is good for maybe 2 pages. Nobody looks at the rescue card with the really cool pictures (that could each be a successful t-shirt design in the right hipster neighborhood), and there’s just nothing else available. Why not print up some articles with green travel tips, or with articles about the cities you are flying to and from and what they are doing to be green.

AT THE AIRPORT

1. COMPOST. In Denver I saw recycle bins, which was awesome. But still, there could be compost bins. Maybe I’m totally showing my San Francisco-ness here, but imagine the amount of compost you could generate at the airport. There are dozens if not a hundred restaurants in the standard airport (the International ports, anyway.) and they throw away literal tons of food everyday.
2. WALKWAYS. I know I’m going to make enemies on this one- but those sped up walkways where it’s like a flat escalator? They can go. Yes, they’re really fun, and I had a great time walking back and forth on them in Denver, but are they really necessary? Is it really that far to walk in an airport? Think of all the electricity it would save. (And restaurants- it will be something to make people hungrier and thirstier!).
3. CARBON FOOTPRINTS. This is the kind of place where people are just looking for things to look at. Why not get local schools to figure out the carbon footprints of everything in the airport and post them. Good for everybody.

Photo Credit: Olastuen