Around the world, November and December are considered as months of celebration in all sort of cultures when holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, Kwanzaa, and many more are celebrated. Although these holidays may vary in their cultural backgrounds, all of them pertain to celebrating the ones we love, and giving thanks for the lives we are afforded.
In my family, the celebration of these holidays often involves large quantities of food, decoration, and gifts, which I am sure is consistent with the celebrations in other families. Like anyone else growing up, I have always enjoyed these traditions, but as I grow older and advance in my education, I have started to ask the usual question, “Could we do better?”
After some pondering and online research, I came to the conclusion that, Yes, we could do way better!
Aside from the awkward family dinners that occur with judgy Aunt Carol and her third husband, there are several other problems that we may not want to face around the holiday season, mainly the amount of waste we produce. Unlike Aunt Carol however, this problem can be avoided! Listed below are some ideas of how YOU can make a difference!
1.) Shopping For Gifts
- Shop local and small
- supports your community
- supports your local economy
- in some cases- can save energy due to less shipping and handling (ex: buying baked goods from a local baker versus from a grocery store)
- Do you need it?
- Sales around the holidays make spending very tempting but you can save money and reduce waste by asking yourself the question “Do I really need this?”
- Use your talents!
- Baking, knitting, sewing, woodwork, and so much more! Give the person you care about a truly unique gift.
- Thrift stores
- Although they can carry a bad rep they actually have some cool stuff.
- Make it a game
- Every year a friend and I go to our local thrift store with 10 dollars each and compete to see who can find the best gift. The results are sometimes hilarious!
- Re-gift
- BYOB
Photo Credit: zazzle.com - BRING YOUR OWN BAG, that’s right I knew what your were thinking. Help cut down on waste by saying no to disposable bags.
- If given the option ask for paper, but worse comes to worse reuse your disposable plastic bags around the house or yard
- Gift experiences not goods
- Buy from companies that give back!
- buy gifts from companies who donate a portion of their profits to a charity or other cause
- Give a donation in somebody’s name to a charity they care about
2.) Wrapping
- Reuse gift bags, tissue paper, ribbons, and tins
- Get creative with your wrapping
- use old comics and newspapers to wrap gifts
- Use holiday sacks
- rather than wrapping gifts in paper every year. My family hides present in cloth and ribbon bags under the tree. Not only does it save money and paper but it also looks cute!
- Create your own or you can buy them online
3.) Decorations
- Buy a real tree
- plastic trees may be convenient, but after a while they wear out and get thrown away and sits in a landfill for years
- dead tree- better than a plastic tree but still not the best
- living tree- once you are done with your holiday tree you can go outside and plant it
- Buy gently used decorations
- Buy holiday lights that are LED to save energy
4.) Food
- Plan accordingly how much food you need to buy to serve your guests to prevent buying too much or too little. According to the National Resources Defense Council, “around 204 million pounds of turkey meat will get thrown away over this Thanksgiving [2016] costing us $293 million as a nation (United States)”.
- Eat sustainable seafood
- Check out http://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recommendations/consumer-guides for guide to eating sustainable seafood for a sustainable guide
- P.S. there’s an app for that
Photo Credit: seafoodwatch.org
- Reduce single use packaging or buy food in packages that can be recycled
- Add variety to your diet and buy from local markets
By implementing some of the solutions above, we can truly make a difference as individuals and make our holidays that much merrier for both us, and our environment. With all this positive change however, it is important to keep in mind that change takes time and any steps taken can help, so don’t beat yourself up for making small changes. Effort is what matters!
Having said all of this, these are just a few ideas that I have read about or come up with over the course of time. If you have ideas for how to make the holidays more sustainable please feel free to share!
Cited:
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/dana-gunders/dont-waste-turkey-tips-save-food-t-day
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/follow-these-7-food-rules-to-eat-sustainably/
Kattails 