You can't take it with you, there is a law about fruit flies you know. But, this is a sign of true wacko status.

Nuts!

That's a heart-breaker for sure! ;-D Seriously it does bother me also to have to throw good compost materials in the garbage.

My suggestions:

1. You could go online and find a garden club in your vacation location and arrange to meet some members and 'gift' them with your peelings!

2. Take a walk in the woods and scrape some soil aside and bury your banana peel.

3. Triple bag all your goodies and bring them home. If you had to go thru customs it would be an interesting scenario!

OK, I'm done, anyone else have a good idea?

Not having them call security and kicking you off your flight, would be a nicer trip home. You can't even mail stuff like that to CA. You have no idea how strict they are about fruits because of a fruit fly called the Med fly.

I once got on a plane in New Hampshire bound for Philadelphia with 50 pounds of sunchokes in my luggage. Naturally I got the full strip search when they x-rayed the bag, but eventually they let me fly. When traveling, I usually jettison my organic matter into an organic area - the ocean, the woods, a river. Nature knows how to deal with the easy stuff. It's the complex hydrocarbons that are the real problem.

I can understand your compulsion, since I am also angst-ridden about ever throwing away an item that can be composted.

But on your vacation, you are simply going to have to knuckle down and throw things out. It wouldn't make sense ecologically to mail it back to the mainland or try to take it on the plane (wasted jet fuel for ounces of compostables, or getting busted in customs).

So just let this one GO. It's difficult, but it's the most logical thing to do. Enjoy your vacation, and once you return home refreshed and invigorated, get back to composting with gusto! :)

I never compost gusto, just use it straight.

My son and I traveled to Hawaii recently also! I agree that it's painful to see the amount of waste that occurs on vacation or elsewhere. I consider travel to be a luxury that consumes much more fossil fuel and generates more waste than my usual lifestyle. For example 1 mile of air travel uses approx. the same amount of fuel as 1 mile of auto travel. While I only drive my car an average of 8K miles a year, one 10-day trip to Hawaii nets about 10K miles. So travel is something that I indulge in less frequently than when I was younger.

When possible, I try to discretely dispose of organic waste, by burying it under some leaves, or throwing an apple core or something into a wild area where it can decompose. Also, if there are extra napkins, or plastic flatware, leftover from a meal I will pack those and bring them home.

But, of course the plane takes a lot more people compared to a car load, so if you divide it by the number of people being served air travel saves. I wonder if Hawaii has a city wide compost that you can donate the foods too?

I don't take vacations, but if I did, I wouldn't sweat it. I have trouble enough with local composting issues.

Lloyd

Tropical thought, it's been a few years since I researched this, but the amount of fuel has been calculated per person. Planes use a lot more fuel than autos, but the average airplane also carries a lot more people than the average car. IIRC, it breaks down to approx. the same amount of fuel used per person per mile of travel for both airplanes and autos on average.