Ants I have met

* However outside Europe their are also ants that even cut parts out of plastics like tents, bags en jackets. As there also are mouse that like to eat the plastics of electrical cables (and so might cause fires). It are very specific smelling materials that cause this behaviour. PVC isolated electrical cables are more cheap and still not forbidden. Saving the environment is "really important", but not (at all) if that will costs more money or will restrict anyone in whatever idea.

I guess it is pvc material (polyvinylchloride) that "does the job". Chloride, so pvc, is very cheap to produce but it is also very (extremely) poisoness. Pvc is actually a kind of "drop dead" material. Just burn a very small piece of it and you will never forget about that ! Ofcourse do so only outside, in a safe way at a safe place, and watch the winddirection ! But as usual no one has to pay the any price for the environmental damage. Although you do pay somehow anyway if you are a (private) taxpayer.

The bicyclebags of the famous Ortlieb company are made of pvc. There is hardly any cyclist who has any idea about this aspect. They always do buy them (copy-paste behaviour, without analysis aka thinking) since everybody else does. This ofcourse is the basics of menkind : "If they all do so they can't be wrong can they". Yes they can, and for several more reasons ! My YesTrip bicyclepanniers of the Vaude company 🖱️ do not contain pvc material.

I will change my (old) pvc stuff for non-pvc materials at there end of life. Not before, this to safe the environment for the chloride (burns). The round blue Ortlieb rollbag in which I transport my mattress and sleepingbag is made of pvc. I bought that bag somewhere in the early 1980's and it is still going strong. But in those days nobody had any idea about chloride and pvc, except for Akzo and Dupont, the manufacturers of the raw material. And the grey Ortlieb rackpack I have is made of pvc and I bought it some 10 years ago but I then still did not realise the pvc aspect.

My Exped Orion 2 UL tent was quite environmantal friendly until I had to order a new flysheet (of pvc). The original UL ultra-lightweight non-pvc flysheet caused me an awfull lot of problems concerning condensation, every night of the year and at every temperature. Then I was attacked at the camping in Elvas by two guys during the night. They stole a bottle of wine but also threw big stones at my tent before they ran away. That caused two big holes in the UL flysheet. I therefor finally decided to buy a new flysheet, but the pvc version instead of the ultraleight "raining inside" version.