For those who adhere to a strictly low-waste lifestyle, the holiday season presents manifold challenges. Not only do you have to take the regular hosting and gift giving considerations into account, you’re also hyper-aware of the pressure to avoid contributing to the 275,613 tonnes of waste Brits produce each December – a figure that includes tossed decorations, trees, wrapping paper, food and more.
At a time of the year when over-consumption is rife and our recycling bins are overflowing with discarded packaging, it can feel impossible for even some of the most ardent defenders of the environment to stick to their principles.
Thankfully, as concern for the environment continues to grow amongst younger generations, so too do the number of sustainable, low-waste productions and solutions available. If making your celebrations more sustainable is at the top of your priority list, read on for tips on how to minimize waste while gift giving, hosting and decorating for the holidays!
Choose Low-Waste Gifts
Choosing the perfect holiday gifts for your friends, family members and the coworkers you’ve been matched with for Secret Santa can be challenging at the best of times – what to get for the parent who already has everything, or the spouse who assures you he really doesn’t want anything this year? Thinking about how to fulfill their needs while remaining true to your low-waste principles is undoubtedly challenging, but certainly not unattainable.
Sustainable gifting doesn’t just mean avoiding products that come wrapped in single-use packaging. Eco-focused gifters can go a step further by sticking to products from companies that actively enforce sustainable practices and source materials or ingredients from sustainable suppliers – like the refillable cocktail bottles sold by yours truly – or by heading to one of the UK’s more than 11,000 charity shops and giving a pre-loved item a new lease on life.
Other gift ideas:
- Create a DIY masterpiece with things you already have around the house. All that stands between you and endless (inexpensive) gift ideas are a few craft supplies and some unused household items!Â
- Opt for edible gifts that keep on giving – like a homemade sourdough starter or a SCOBY for making kombucha. Give your friends a fun new task to work on and give their gut health a boost. FYI: sourdough discard makes a great addition to the compost bin, while kombucha can benefit flavour-wise from fruit scraps!Â
- Gift an expensive, not a thing. Often the best gifts aren’t the ones we can hold in our hands, but the ones we can look forward to doing. Treat a loved one to a fun day out – bonus points if you can find an eco-friendly experience to gift!Â
Reuse and recycle wrapping paper and decorations
British consumers use a whopping 227,000 miles’ worth of wrapping paper each year – a huge figure for something that’s typically admired for mere seconds before it’s ripped to shreds and tossed in the bin. Rather than purchasing brand-new, purpose-made wrapping paper (which will inevitably come wrapped in plastic), instead opt for one of the many alternatives available. In Japan, people use furoshiki – decorative fabric squares – to wrap gifts, but any scrap fabric will do the trick. Old newspapers, paper shopping bags and leftover packing paper also make great gift wrap!
You can apply the same DIY approach to decorations, too, which account for 12,500 tonnes of waste each year, or to greeting cards. And don’t forget to save your DIY decorations for next year!
Make your holiday meals more sustainable
It’s not just Christmas decorations and wrapping paper that end up in the trash by Boxing Day – it’s the food, too. Brits waste about seven million tonnes of food around Christmastime, which is to say nothing of the packaging it comes in. With so much of our food now coming wrapped in single-use plastic and 45% of British consumers admitting to overbuying around the holiday season, that means heaps of wasted packaging and food.
So, how can you do better?
- Shop with a list to avoid overbuying.
- Stock your fridge with zero waste beverages, like Meetini’s We Are Spirits line of refillable bottled cocktails. In addition to saving the planet, pre-mixed cocktails also take some of the pressure off of hosting duties and give you more time to entertain guests.
- Shop at dedicated zero-waste stores. This will not only allow you to choose sustainable products, but often avoid packaging and overbuying, too, as many low- and zero-waste waste shops sell products in bulk.
- Check the temperature of your fridge. Refrigerators that aren’t set at the correct temperature – between 0º and 5º – are a major cause of food going off earlier than it should!
- Make a plan for your leftovers... bubble and squeak is secretly better than Christmas dinner, and those who say otherwise is lying to themselves.Â
Of course, there are countless other ways to incorporate sustainability into your holiday celebrations, from what you wear to how you light your house, but even adopting one of the above ideas is a step in the right direction. We’d love to hear how you reduce your waste over the holidays!
Author: Holly T.