These days, some airports look like shopping malls. An easy way to reduce the weight you carry on board is to skip the retail and duty-free at the departure airport: there’s no point packing lightly and then buying bottles of alcohol or other heavy objects at the gate.

If every adult passenger bought a single bottle of spirits, that alone would add around 1.5 kg each, up to roughly 1,000 kg on a full A380. And that’s the modest case: if everyone bought their full duty-free allowance, a fully loaded A380 could in theory be hauling well over 10 tonnes of drink.

In a positive development, some airports in Ireland now offer a ‘Shop & Drop’ service, so you can leave your duty-free at the airport and collect it when you return from a trip within the EU.

Once on board, the big carbon choices are behind you, so to pass the time, why not play a round of Airline Greenwashing Bingo? How many “commitments to sustainability” can you spot on your journey, in the airport, in the announcements, on the menu, in the inflight entertainment? And which ones, if any, do you think will actually make a meaningful difference?

And if you spot none at all? That might be ‘greenhushing’: when a company deliberately goes quiet about its environmental efforts, sometimes to avoid being accused of greenwashing, sometimes because it has little to show. Either way, what matters is a flight’s actual emissions, not how loudly or quietly the airline talks about them.

Play Interactive Bingo Here!

Over the last few years, airlines have slowly started to address the parade of single-use disposables they hand out. Even so, each flight, on average, creates around 240 kg of waste (most of it landfilled or incinerated), and across the industry, that adds up to an estimated 6 million tonnes a year.

So only accept, open, and use what you really need: anything left sealed can hopefully be reused. Hold on to your glass throughout the journey rather than taking a new one each refill, and, of course, travel with your own water bottle.

And in the luxury cabins, where they really try to seduce you with free goodies, do you actually need the amenity kit with the tiny plastic toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, and face creams, or the free pyjamas and slippers? If you can afford the seat, you probably already have these things in the generous carry-on baggage you’re allowed to bring along.