How to have a sustainable summer

How eco-friendly is your pool float? Last year, the flamingo was the inflatable to be seen lounging on but now it’s about whether it is sustainable. Summer is undergoing a shift. Barbecues, holidays to Mediterranean beaches, swimsuits and suncream are being recalibrated because summer has to be green. 

Glastonbury showed it can be done — the festival encouraged travel by train and bike rather than car, clamped down on single-use plastic and issued a plea for tents to be taken home. A record 99.3 per cent of tents were removed this year. Wrapping on the sandwiches in the on-site Co-op was biodegradable too and this is going to be picked up in other supermarkets. 

Back in London, a combination of endless Ubers to and from barbecues, day drinking from the moment the sun appears and ASOS impulse shopping to account for unpredictable weather (thanks, monsoon June) has a short shelf life if you value your bank account. This week, scientists said a barbecue for four creates as much CO2 as a 92-mile car trip. But a sustainable lifestyle does not have to rain on your summer parade. Here’s how to do it. 

Look smart

Fast fashion — the culture of buying cheap outfits and discarding them to buy more — generates 300,000 tonnes of clothes a year, heading to incineration or landfill. The industry recognises the need for change and Econyl is revolutionary. It’s a yarn created from industrial plastic, waste fabric and fishing nets from oceans and it makes beautiful swimsuits. 

Our fashion editor recommends Arket’s predominantly recycled line. London is leading the way here — Stay Wild’s hero cossie is the Lunar one-piece and Cossie + Co’s range is gloriously pared back. 

If the weather is less favourable, eco-proof your wellies. Hunter is aiming to give wellington boots a second life by introducing an in-store and online recycling service in time for festival season. Customers can either drop off their old Hunter boots at the Regent Street flagship or arrange collection of their boots from their home for a 15 per cent discount. Or buy clothes that will last you the summer without even needing a wash.

The Canadian fashion start-up Ably is one eco-fashion start-up that pitches this — their eco-friendly “Filium” fabric apparently repels liquid — shrugging off water, sweat, wine, coffee and melting ice cream. Ditto Pangaia, who sell a £67 seaweed fibre T-shirts treated with peppermint oil to stay fresh, said to save up to 3,000 litres of water over its lifetime. Unbound Merino has developed a T-shirt you can wear for weeks without it feeling funky (moisture wicking material pulls the sweat to the surface, where it dries rapidly). Wool & Prince makes “odour-resistant” boxer shorts and shirts for men, plus a dress that doesn’t need to be washed for 100 days. 

Safe sun

The alternative suncream market is booming — Solid and Striped’s is oxybenzone-free, meaning it won’t erode coral reefs when it runs off. Badger Balm and Stream2Sea are also reef-safe as well as smelling delicious and being non-greasy and water-resistant. 

Stay grounded 

“Even if you take measures to live sustainably, a single flight can wipe out all other savings,” says Anna Hughes, founder of the UK’s Flight Free UK movement, which aims to ground 100,000 people voluntarily for a whole year. Transit is toxic. We make 70.8 million overseas trips every year, not only creating a huge chunk of carbon emissions (aviation counts for two per cent globally) but also meaning airport queues, taxis, inflated food costs, baggage control and screaming children kicking the back of your seat. 

If you want to save on money and stress, take it slow. This, famously, is the Greta Thunberg approach — the 16-year-old climate activist travels everywhere by train. 

Hughes admits there are whopping great obstacles — visiting distant family or work commitments. “Part of the problem is that we feel the need to do everything at such speed,” she says. “A narrowboat from London to Bristol takes its time, sure, but the whole journey is part of the holiday.” 

Once you’re there, try to have eco-friendly accessories. Pool floats are a minefield because most contain PVC but Funboy aims to give back — for every accessory purchased they give clean drinking water to one person for a year through the charity RainCatcher. If you’re surfing, get a Firewire board; they are made from recycled materials. 

Grill power

Henry Dimbleby, the co-founder of Leon and the Sustainable Restaurant Association, advises changing the coal you use on the barbecue. Ecologicoal is made from olive pip waste and has no carbon footprint. You can also use FSC certified wood. Seek out natural fire lighters made from wood and vegetable oils too. 

Shrink your carbon footprint even more by minimising meat. Tomatoes, broad beans and courgettes are all in season and are brilliant on the barbecue. 

“Make veg the star,” says Dimbleby. “Who wants a burnt sausage when it’s an amazing time of year for veg that lights up the BBQ without being flown in. I do pumpkin with a chilli sauce, aubergine, broad beans in their pods and eat them from the pod. Oily fish is great on the BBQ too and if you have a bay tree cook mackerel over the branches. Oneplanetplate.org is full of recipe inspiration.”

Drinks can be sustainable too. Kick your plastic straw habit – Goop recommends Aardvark paper straws which are customisable and durable, there are also steel straws, Hummingbird Glass straws, Brush with Bamboo shatter-resistant options and Harvest Straws made from non-GMO grain. Cheers.

Park life  

Concerns over pollution have meant ice-cream vans are banned from 40 streets in Camden, with council officials mounting patrols. Westminster has also been cracking down on idling diesel vans. 

Mercifully, change is afoot. Whitby Morrison, which makes about 80 per cent of ice-cream vans in the UK, will begin testing a battery-powered ice-cream maker, and if all goes to plan the first all-electric ice-cream vans will be in use by the end of the summer. Bring a water bottle too – the most advanced is a £95 LARQ bottle, which uses UV-light to purify water, but you can get one for £12 from One Green Bottle.

Lawn patrol

Traditional, emerald lawns are a drag: costly to maintain in terms of time, money and water, requiring harmful pesticides and fertilisers and encouraging heterogeneous monocultures of plants, which do nothing for insect diversity. There is Astroturf, which is newly popular, but smells of burning plastic in the sun (also: is plastic). 

Instead, plant a “freedom lawn”, an American concept. It’s not all grass, or even one kind of grass: it has dandelions, clover, and buttercups, too. “You can plant crocus and violets and ajuga. You can still walk on it and let them spread on their own with minimal mowing and no petrochemicals,” writes Del Tredici, author of Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast. 

Field days

Be a hero. Your utility belt (OK, it’s an EastPak bumbag) is a great spot to keep your socks and iPhone dry, but is also your stash spot for a reusable water bottle. 

If you’re thinking of leaving your tent behind, pack it in. Around 250,000 tents are left behind each year following festivals in the UK, most of which end up in landfill. Borrowing a tent, or re-using an old one, is the sensible option (read: safe but dull). Much better for the ‘gram is the recyclable cardboard tent from Dutch designers Kommer & Jan Portheine, the two-person Kartent — it’s £48.88 (although at 2,40 metres by 1,60 metres when folded, you’ll need a very big van).  

Travel can be a headache. Coach companies such as Tuned in to Travel and Big Green Coach off-set their carbon emissions (which are much more economical than travelling by car) by investing in the protection of swathes of forest. The latter has guaranteed 1,200,000sqft rainforest.

Of course, there are other essentials — namely glitter. Bioglitter produce the world’s first plastic-free, plant-based alternative (same sparkle, it just naturally biodegrades).