8 Gift-Giving Tips to Cut Your Waste and Keep The Trash Out of Christmas
Don't Let ‘The Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ Become the Trashiest?
I have a lot of new readers and followers so I thought I would bring this Christmas waste post forward for a second year - the tips are as good today as they were before. I’ve added a couple of amazon affiliate links to my favorite products to make it easy to check out examples of what has worked for me to help reduce waste. Enjoy this re-boot!
Sue
Ahhhhh . . . . Christmas time! Twinkling lights and decorated trees. Mystery presents wrapped in bright paper. Feasts of turkey and ham. Dizzying arrays of holiday treats. The parties. The presents.
But cue the record-scratch sound!!!!
There is a shocking and dirty side to this holiday season that we ignore each year as we hang all our stockings with glee.
What turns this time of holiday joy and wonder into a planet crushing event?
Christmas Waste.
And while we have been conditioned in the past to simply accept Christmas waste as part and parcel of the holiday season, we can no longer ignore this Grinch which changes the beautiful sentiments of Christmas into the ever growing Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or microplastics that we now all eat and breathe, or into water millions can no longer drink.
The impact of Christmas on the environment is staggering!
Christmas Waste (not-so-fun) Facts 2023
The UK uses 227k miles of wrapping paper and sends 114k tonnes of plastic packaging waste to the landfill each year at Christmas time (ref-1)
Americans generate 2.9 trillion pounds of EXTRA waste each week of the holiday season (ref-2)
The average Canadian family sends 25% more waste to the dump over Christmas time (ref-3)
In Australia, over 5 million tonnes of food goes straight to the landfill at Christmas time (ref-4)
It’s time to change Christmas for the better, and the fastest way we can do that is by cutting our Christmas waste.
The best news is that this is not a painful thing to do at all.
It just takes awareness and better choices.
Check this out.
8 Gift-Giving Tips to Cut Your Christmas Waste
1. Reduce The Wrappings
There is a kind of magic in peeling off the wrappings of a present.
The suspense. The curiosity.
Those seconds of wonder when anything might be inside this gift – maybe your wildest wish is coming true?
But that wonder doesn’t need to come at the expense of the planet.
Create layers of re-useability instead of layers of waste!
Any of the following wrappers will drastically cut your Christmas waste:
• Plain paper (instead of shiny and glittery options) can simply be composted after.
• Beeswax wraps are useable in the kitchen and become part of the gift itself.
• Cloth shopping bags likewise become part of the gift.
• Tea towels or bath towels, ditto.
I like these bees wax wraps because they come in 3 sizes (amazon affiliate link)
2. Choose Rechargeable Power
Replaceable (non-recharging) batteries are a source of ongoing expense and waste. Instead of giving a gift that keeps on diving into your friend’s wallet, look for rechargeable options.
Thankfully there are now LOTS of items that come with USB and wall charging options.
You can even take this one step further by giving a rechargeable power bank, which makes access to power fully portable and can extend the use of the electronic gifts.
3. Shop Local
You can eliminate TONS of shipping waste simply by purchasing your gifts at a local store.
Not only are you putting money back into your community, you are avoiding the waste created by individually shipped items compared to the bulk-shipment process used by brick and mortar stores.
4. Order Effectively
Make your list and check it twice
– then order once.
Bulk orders that ship together mean less packaging waste to deal with when your gifts arrive.
They also mean less fossil fuels used to transport that package to you.
If you are going to order online, then order effectively to reduce your Christmas waste contribution.
5. Pick A Green Shipper
I Love Love LOVE the latest green shipping trends that some businesses are opting for.
Shop with companies using compostable packaging and shipping materials. You can usually find these details under the shipping information on a website, but LOTS of companies are bragging about their planet-friendly steps.
Green packaging and shipping materials (like paper filler instead of foam chips or plastic bubble wrap) and compostable materials mean that the waste from your gift’s transport is easy to deal with at the recycling depot.
6. Reduce Food Waste
While bounteous food is a big part of the Christmas season, food waste doesn’t have to be.
Make a plan in advance for how you will handle leftover foods (because there always seems to be Christmas leftovers!):
Have reusable containers ready to send food home with guests
Freeze the extra food the very next day for an easy holiday treat later on
Create a leftovers food swap with friends where you exchange leftovers, letting you enjoy someone else’s cooking instead of eating the same meal again.
And perhaps the simplest strategy of all for reducing your Christmas food waste (and boosting your holiday health) is to:
MAKE LESS, EAT LESS, MOVE MORE
For more food waste reducing tips check out this post.
Here are two (amazon affiliate) links to my favorite kitchen purchase this past year - reusable silicon freezing cubes in 1 cup and 2 cup sizes. These have been game changers for me and let me reduce my food waste by freezing foods for later AND eat healthier each month because I have portion-controlled servings at the ready.
7. Give Gifts That Enhance Sustainability
Treat your loved ones to gifts that help THEM reduce waste over the long term.:
Use gift cards to minimize unwanted returns.
Give gifts that encourage home-made meals, cooking and food storage to reduce food waste.
Give camping gear that can double as emergency supplies (because we all need to be better prepared in the face of local disasters!)
Give a Substack Subscription! You can choose The Naturalized Human using the ‘Give a gift subscription’ link below, or choose anyone of the amazing newsletters here on the Substack site by visiting their homepages.
My favorite Substack writers include
, and .And now I’ll expand that to include
, , and .
Give solar power and green energy solutions, which are gifts that keep on giving.
If you are thinking of going big for someone this Christmas, why not opt for an e-bike instead of a car.
8. Re-think Gift-Giving Altogether
If it’s the thought that counts, then why not celebrate Christmas by creating memories instead of waste?
Time together is perhaps the greatest gift of all. Give it creatively by:
Giving experiences instead of material objects (Why not tickets to a play? Restaurant vouchers? Movie passes?)
Create “coupons” so your favorite person can cash in on your time (Date night? Car wash? Hiking trip? Beach walk? Massage?)
Plan a Staycation with great ideas.
“Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small,
Was singing without any presents at all!”
- Dr. Suess (How the Grinch Stole Christmas)
Take the Trash Out of Christmas
Christmas doesn’t have to end in a heap of garbage to throw away. Reducing your waste during the holiday season can be easy and fun to do.
Think of it as your gift to the planet!
If you have waste-reducing Christmas tips - please share them in the comments.
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