The holiday season is right around the corner, and with the impending worry of finding the perfect gift for your friends and family members, it is also important that we cherish our loved ones and the planet.
Stanford University has found that on average, an extra 25 MILLION tons of trash are produced from Thanksgiving to New Year’s by Americans every year, about 25% more waste than any other time of the year. There are some key gift swaps and essential practices that we MUST keep in mind this holiday season to reduce our carbon footprint and contribute to a better world.
Shop, don’t Ship
I know, it’s a lot easier to scroll on your phone in the comfort of your bed rather than go out into the real world. Ew. But, have you ever considered the amount of emissions and plastic excessively produced through online shopping?
A study by Oceana found that Amazon alone, a company making up 39% of online sales in the US, produced over 465 million pounds of plastic packaging waste in 2019. To put this into perspective, a pound of plastic can be visualized as about 250 water bottle caps, or 500 straws! Now, multiply these by 465 million, and WOW, that’s a lot of plastic.
And the plastic problem is just a fraction of the overall issue. Consider the amount of carbon emissions emitted by over-sea freight ships, air travel, and box vans and shipping carriers, all required to conveniently bring a box to your door.
So, what can we due to mitigate our shopping waste? We can choose to shop, and shop locally, instead of shipping. Shopping locally provides LOTS of benefits: such as boosting your local economy, producing less packaging, associated travel emissions, and, the pieces are usually more unique and higher quality! Who can beat that?!
Not sure where to shop? Check out local events such as the U-District Farmers Market every Saturday, or other local hotspots like Pike Place Market or the Fremont Flea Market!
Conscious Gift Wrap
Gift wrap is one of the most wasted resources around the holiday times even though it is easily recyclable. According to Tokki, a reusable gift wrap company, Americans use about 4.6 million pounds of wrapping paper every year, though only half of it ends up being recycled. There are easy ways to reduce our waste through being more conscious of our gift wrapping.
Try saving your gift wrap and reusing it another year! If you receive a gift in the most beautiful holiday bag, it is easy to simply save that bag for the next year and use it for another gift.
Try making your own custom gift wrap out of recycled materials! For example, try taking that brown paper bag you took your groceries home in and collage the bag with old paper scraps, or paint it. You could make something more beautiful than anything available in a store with resources you already have.
eco-gifting
It may be fun to get gifts for loved ones that are cute and trendy, but are they always the most practical, usable items?
Gift items with a longer longevity! Ditch gifting single use items like new makeup or fast fashion, and consider items your loved ones may be able to keep and enjoy for a long time.
Consider gifting art or decor made out of sustainable materials! Art can be enjoyed for years and is often made out of sustainable materials like canvas or ceramic! Many unique pieces like these can be sourced second hand as well from your local thrift stores.
At the end of the day, we must make every reasonable effort we can to put our planet first. Start this holiday season!