For years, I’ve been searching for the best water bottle for travel–one that lets me avoid plastic and single-use materials at every leg of every journey. This elusive bottle of my dreams needs to be leakproof and insulated. It needs a wide-mouth for easy filling and cleaning, but it also needs to be easy to drink from without dousing my face.

It needs to be compatible with cup holders. And it needs to be versatile–sometimes I want water, sometimes I want coffee, and sometimes I want a cocktail or glass of wine on the plane. One thing I never, ever want: to drink from a single-use container that will end up in the landfill shortly after I empty it.

In order to achieve this goal, I’ve historically had to pack two containers: an insulated bottle for water and coffee and a cup for in-flight beverages.

But no longer. ($52, 1 pound, 5 ounces) is the bottle I’ve been searching for.

Things I Love About the CamelBak MultiBev

It holds 22 ounces, making it the perfect size for me. Not too big to lug around, not so puny I need to refill every 20 minutes. The slim profile means I can slip it in the side pocket of my pack and every cup holder I’ve encountered. According to my tests, it keeps tea hot for 12+ hours and water chilled for 48+.

Still, you might say, many bottles do these things.

The clincher for the MultiBev is that the bottom screws off and becomes an elegant 16-ounce cup–perfect for a cocktail or glass of Merlot at 40,000 feet or ideal for a bedtime peppermint tea in my hotel room. Speaking of that peppermint tea, the cap of the MultiBev hides another neat feature: a foldable silicone sipper lid that fits neatly onto the cup for dribble-free drinking.

On a recent campervan trip in new Zealand, I discovered that the cup also doubles as a coozie for a beer can! I like a nice cold beer on occasion, and when I slip a can into the cup, it keeps it cool for a good long time, even in the hot sun.

I also like the little details: the easy-to-carry to handle, the non-slip rubber base, and the fact that the whole shebang is dishwasher safe.

The Impact of Using the CamelBak MultiBev on a 3-Day Trip

On a recent business trip from Boston to Boulder that involved air, bus, and Uber travel, I packed the MultiBev. I estimate that it allowed me to refuse about 34 single-use containers in 72 hours: six coffee cups and lids, probably 20+ plastic water bottles, and eight plastic airline cups.

Aside from travel, the MultiBev has become my daily bottle for around town as I try to avoid putting any single-use plastic to my lips. We all know plastic is everywhere these days. I’ve written about some of the sneaky ways (like through laundry detergent and cutting boards) it gets into our environment and our bodies. Plastic is even .

But one thing’s for sure. From now on, I won’t be drinking it.

Doing right by the planet can make you happier, healthier, and—yes—wealthier. şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř’s Head of Sustainability, Kristin Hostetter, explores small lifestyle tweaks that can make a big impact. Write to her at climateneutral-ish@outsideinc.com.

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There are lots of way to make an impact on the world’s raging plastic problem. Every little step away from single-use plastic and towards a circular and petroleum-free world is worth celebrating.

Here are a few things we’re stoked about from just a few of our 336 (and counting) Plastic Impact Alliance members.

A Better Zipper

YKK has taken ocean plastic they collected from the coast of Sri Lanka and turned it into Natulon Ocean Sourced zippers that perform and last exactly the same as zippers made from virgin polyester (aka plastic). Check them out at booth #56020-UL at Outdoor Retailer Snow Show.

Killer Teamwork

At Outdoor Retailer next week, Stanley, Osprey, and Nikwax are teaming up with Sunday Afternoons, Deschutes Breweries, and Hood River Distilleries to host a “block party” on Day 2 / January 30 at 4:30 P.M. to benefit Protect Our Winters. “All of the drinkware is plastic-free. You can either pick up a sili-pint at the Osprey booth (#39081-UL) or a Stanley pint (#42096-UL) and that gets you unlimited cocktail or beer and the refills,” said Michelle Fleming of Stanley. “No plastic cups of any kind. We’ve also moved to getting food from the bulk food bins at a local grocery store and filling up our Stanley food storage containers with snacks instead of buying a bunch of prepackaged snacks.”

A Step up in Packaging

Nikwax commits to 100 percent recycled (and recyclable) bottles for all its products. “We are all horrified by the images that we see on our news feeds of plastic pollution,” said Nick Brown, founder of Nikwax. “It is abhorrent to visit a wild space and find it polluted with unnatural waste. Plastic pollution is one of the problems we CAN solve through raising awareness, recycling, using new technology, and improving regulation. We hope to contribute to ultimately eliminating the problem without contributing further to climate change.”

Upcycling Old Cups for Happy Hours

Mountain Hardwear understands that we all have plenty of reusable cups already, so for their events at Outdoor Retailer, they upcycle meticulously clean, slightly-used vessels, a brilliant solution. “One thing we’ve heard over and over again is that attendees don’t need any another camp cup, so we’ve gone the reuse route,” said Jeff Brandon of Mountain Hardwear. “If happy hour guests don’t have a cup we furnish them with one of our countless, slightly used, and very clean, reusable cups. It’s been extremely popular as folks love getting cups from old climbing events, trade show, etc.” Bravo!

Moving Away from Petro-Based Fabrics

Picture Organic Clothing launches a “biosourced polyester” jacket, the Demain, made from sugarcane waste, which advances the eco-focused brand’s quest to wipe out fossil fuels, while keeping mountain shredders protected from nasty weather. Check it out at booth #39143-UL at Outdoor Retailer Snow Show.

Bottomless Coffee

Primus, the American Alpine Club, and Bivouac Coffee are teaming up to offer bottomless coffee mugs at Outdoor Retailer next week. Purchase a Primus vacuum mug at the AAC booth (#43093-UL, all proceeds benefit the AAC) and get free tasty Bivouac Coffee refills for the remainder of the show.

Greening Races

Nuun also just announced a partnership with HydraPak + Mascot Sports/Oakland Run Co. to create the first ever cupless race series. This will eliminate 100,000 single-use cups across all Oakland Run Co. events in 2020. During OR, Nuun is partnering once again with Vessel to provide reusable stainless steel sample cups at its booth. *We hope to see wider adoption of Vessel’s programming in future shows.

Costa Tackles Lenses

In 2019, Costa launched a recycling program for Eye Care Professionals (ECPs) in partnership with Piedmont Plastics. More than 700 ECPs have joined the program, repurposing 4,700 pounds of petrochemical based lenses into other plastic products such as safety glasses, motorcycle helmet shields, and police shields.

Tree Huggers

Brand new PIA member Tentree is planting 300 trees to offset their staff’s travel to and from Outdoor Retailer next week. They’ll also be giving out little Blue Spruce saplings at the show, so be sure to stop by and grab one (#VO 201-SL).

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It’s countdown time to Outdoor Retailer + Snow Show, which stages in Denver January 29-31, 2020.

Thanks to collaborative efforts of Plastic Impact Alliance members, including the show management, there was a major increase in awareness around single-use plastic at Outdoor Retailer Summer Market 2019.

Let’s build on that as we approach the upcoming January gathering. Start planning your plastic-free show experience now with these tips.

1. BYO drinkware. Let’s stop amassing more bottles and cups from the generous companies who give them out at the show. We all have enough to last a lifetime, right? If you plan on drinking anything during the show, bring a vessel for it. That includes a water bottle, a coffee cup, and a pint glass for happy hours. Bonus points: bring your own reusable utensils, too.
2. Appoint a sustainability captain. Exhibiting brands should have one person in charge of communicating, facilitating, and driving sustainability efforts within your teams, which includes all of the below points.
3. Host a water station. If you’re an exhibitor, give your staff and booth visitors a place to tank up. The Plastic Impact Alliance has put together .
4. Plan happy hours and events with sustainability in mind. Plastic Impact Alliance members have pledged to reject single-use plastic drinkware at their events, which means brands have to come up with alternatives to the compostable (but still single-use) plastic cups that the Convention Center supplies. Here are some ideas:
   a) Tell people to BYO cup on your invitations. Start hammering this message home early and keep hammering, like PIA member Osprey did at the summer show.
   b) Order stainless steel pint glasses from Stanley, Eco Vessel, Klean Kanteen, Yeti,or GSI. The PIA has made it easy, .
   c) The PIA is partnering with Vessel on an awesome pilot program that will allow attendees to check out reusable stainless steel cups (for free) at various booth locations throughout the show, then return them at designated spots. This is the future of sustainable events!
5. Ditch the carpet. If you’re an exhibitor, embrace the industrial concrete floor, like Outdoor Retailer has done in the aisles and Patagonia has done it its booth. Booth carpet and the plastic underlayer eventually ends up in the landfill.
6. Use only clear, recyclable pallet wrap when packing your booth. Tinted and black plastic film cannot be recycled. Speak to your contractors and make sure to demand clear, un-tinted film, which can be recycled. Outdoor Retailer is working on establishing soft film recycling centers on the show floor, so we can divert all that material from the landfill.
7. Recycle your polybags. Many exhibitors bring poly-wrapped items to the show, but starting in January, we’ll have the option to recycle them right at the Convention Center. Stay tuned for more info as the process develops.
8. Adopt a pack it in/pack it out mentality. Make sure everyone on your team understands that items left on the floor during take down might not make it to the proper recycling bin. Take responsibility for all your materials and trash and ensure it ends up in the right place.
9. Skip the hotel toiletries and the housekeeping service. If all 25,000 or so show attendees packed their own shampoo, conditioner, lotion for all three days of the show, we could spare roughly 75,000 mini plastic bottles form the landfill! Alliance member Matador makes awesome refillable toiletry kits and are offering them at a 50 percent discount for all PIA members and show attendees. Get the scoop .
10. Say no to junk swag. Do you really need that keychain, coozie, or yet another lip balm? Don’t accept something if it will just get stowed in a drawer (then eventually pitched). Send a message about needless logo’d junk. Just say no unless it’s really something you’ll use.

Access our .

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Believe it or not, a zero-waste trade show is within our reach, especially if the industry rallies around the idea in the same way they did to ditch single-use plastic at Outdoor Retailer Summer Market last month in Denver, Colorado.

Not only were single-use water bottles few and far between, but vendors for the first time had an alternative to single-use samples cups thanks to Vessel Works. Plastic Impact Alliance members Nuun, Lono Life, Cusa Tea, and Patagonia Provisions served food and drinks in two-ounce stainless steel cups, which Vessel Works collected at the end of the night, sterilized, and returned the next day.

“Overall the whole pilot was such a success,” Vessel’s Carly Snider said. “I thought we were going to hear pushback from attendees because with anything new you always hear different things. But the vendors were like, I can’t even tell you how incredible it is to offer a zero-waste solution at events.”

Snider is in talks with other brands, as well as Outdoor Retailer and the Colorado Convention Center, about scaling the program at the next shows.

“We got dozens of comments from buyers and media and people genuinely appreciated our efforts to divert waste from the landfill,” Cusa Tea Founder and CEO Jim Lamancusa said. “On top of that, Vessel made it extremely easy. Clean cups magically showed up each morning and dirty ones were hauled away. We will definitely be doing this again.”

Snider is doing a lifecycle assessment of what she calls five-second sample cups, and both Outdoor Retailer and Patagonia are awaiting results of separate audits of waste at the show to determine the next issue to tackle.

Plastic Numbers from the Trade Show Floor

• 1,315 people signed up for the Plastic Impact Promise and 225 brands are members of the Plastic Impact Alliance.

• More than 300 reusable water bottles were given away at the Snews booth.

• Yeti’s water refill vats served 5,631 people with 1,320 gallons of water—for a conversion of 14,080 12-ounce bottles.

• Vessel Works diverted 6,000 sample cups by providing four brands with a fleet of stainless steel reusable ones.

• Outdoor Retailer handed out 25,000 Nalgene bottles to attendees.

• No single-use bottles were sold at concession stands.

• Stanley, a steadfast sponsor of Outdoor Industry Association’s Day One breakfast, invited its competitors Miir, Klean Kanteen, Yeti, CamelBak, Mizu, and EcoVessel to co-sponsor. Together, they distributed 675 insulated vessels.

• Plastic Impact Alliance members hosted 170 in-booth water refill stations around the show floor.

Objectives for Other Trade Shows

On Day Three of the show, a group of Plastic Impact Alliance members—from Outdoor Retailer, Patagonia, Stanley, Costa, Klean Kanteen, Catapult Creative Labs, OBJ, Momentum PR, and Outdoor Industry Association—met to discuss observations and next steps.

“I can’t think of a more progressive trade show…really progressive,” said Amanda Simons with , a trade show sustainability auditing group working with OR.

Some Other Overarching Wins:

• Outdoor Retailer did away with aisle carpeting.

• The Colorado Convention Center baled and recycled plastic film in the back-of-house sorting area—available for all brands to use.

Some Waste-Stream Challenges to Work On:

• Carpet and flooring in booths, plus the plastic covers

• Plastic film for pallet wrapping

• Polybags

• Takeaway food, which produces single-use waste

• Filling, such as pillows, for shoes, bags, etc.

Even though there was noticeable progress, the trash still piled up at the end of the show. A large pile of product labels and bags from one big brand was left as trash on the floor next to their booth.

Patagonia environmental analyst Dawnielle Tellez said Patagonia has a pack in/pack out mentality at the show. “Our visual design team brings everything from our booth back to our headquarters to ensure it’s sorted, repurposed, recycled, composted, or disposed of responsibly,” Tellez said. “Our team goes so far as to use reusable, inflatable bladders to fill our backpacks and duffle bags for display during the show.”

Patagonia, member of the Alliance since May, is creating a tool to enable themselves and other apparel brands to evaluate the overall waste footprint throughout the trade show, including a way to identify single-use plastic “hotspots.”

“We’re also in the process of developing a roadmap for how Patagonia can ultimately reach zero-waste in our trade show operations,” Tellez said. Evaluating the trade show operations is part of Patagonia’s effort to drastically reduce its waste globally, eliminate virgin petroleum sources, and achieve carbon neutrality by 2025.

şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř of OR, the Alliance is working with Outdoor Media Summit (about 150 attendees) to create a totally zero-waste, carbon neutral April 2020 event in Estes Park, Colorado. Grassroots Outdoor Alliance is also moving forward with a plan and a new level of mindfulness around their bi-annual Connect shows.

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