Autumn Marsh and Soham Arekar
With the holiday season quickly approaching it’s the perfect time to explore ways to make our celebrations more sustainable. From the gifts purchased to the way you present them, there’s a multitude of steps that can be taken to reduce your environmental impact this time of the year.
According to San Diego State University (SDSU), approximately 2.6 billion pounds of wrapping paper is thrown away within the U.S. each year. These wrapping papers are often incapable of being recycled due to the dyes and other additional materials added to them. SDSU continues with Americans as a whole spending around $5 billion on wrapping paper annually. This means that we can drastically reduce the amount of waste produced per year just by making sustainable wrapping swaps this holiday season.
Instead of using wrapping paper this holiday season, consider reusing or recycling things you already have in your home. A reusable swap that can be used for years is fabrics, like sari gift wraps. Whether you have them already in the form of shawls or beach wraps or you need to make an initial investment; it’ll save the planet and your wallet in future celebrations. A wonderful alternative that I use every holiday season is newspaper or paper stuffing used to protect items I’ve ordered online throughout the year.
Speaking of online orders, let’s try to stop buying token and impersonal gifts that contribute to waste. NPR's Living Rooms to Landfills found that in 2021 it was estimated that a total of $4.4 trillion was spent on consumer goods. Yet, a survey done with the Center for Biological Diversity found that 90% of Americans wish that the holidays were less materialistic and 88% want the holidays to be more about family and caring for others. This means that it’s a waste of money and bad for the environment to simply buy a gift for the sake of it. Buying fewer but more personalized gifts will not only help the planet but also help us establish more personal and thoughtful connections with the people we care about. The gift of a memorable experience together will last a lifetime.
If you can’t think of what to get someone this holiday season but truly want to give them something physical, consider second-hand gift-giving. It’s cost-effective and allows you to give something a second chance. If that won’t work, help convert the people in your life to a more sustainable lifestyle for the holidays. Purchasing gifts like reusable water bottles or clean and green swaps for daily routine items like shaving, oral hygiene, makeup, and even deodorant.
Albatross Designs discusses how research done by the EPA found that within the U.S., 2 billion razors are disposed of per year. Albatross Designs, like many other sustainable lifestyle companies, offers zero-waste safety razors that eliminate plastic in your shaving routine. Brushing Away Plastic discusses how the one billion toothbrushes thrown away within the U.S. annually amount to a total of 50 million pounds of waste. Paired with toothpaste tubes, deodorant packing, and makeup containers. So, consider giving the people you care about a sustainable alternative instead of something that will sit on a shelf or contribute to what NPR's Living Rooms to Landfills cites as being almost 6 billion pounds of landfill waste from U.S. returns. Not even holiday purchases as a whole, just the items that were returned after the holidays.
Ultimately, the holiday season brings out a lot of normalized behavior that’s dangerous for our planet. Impulse purchasing, obligatory gift giving, and even the very existence of tinsel are having a destructive impact on our planet. Hopefully, after this article, you’ll consider giving the gift of helping the planet this year.
Additional Reading!
Citations
Sources
America’s Plastic Makers. (2022, September 16). Brushing away plastic waste. America’s Plastic Makers. https://plasticmakers.org/brushing-away-plastic-waste/
Designs, A. (2022, January 31). Environmental implications of Plastic Razors. https://albatrossdesigns.it/blogs/sustainability-shaving-sailing-and-more/environmental-implications-of-plastic-razors?srsltid=AfmBOopisIAJDdMi5wlyG0fbBLIua57MfJeH_TFxfm_79YdjHEgxkup1
Selyukh, A. (2022, January 12). From living rooms to landfills, some holiday shopping returns take a “very sad path.” NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/12/1072066943/from-living-rooms-to-landfills-some-holiday-shopping-returns-take-a-very-sad-pat
Tribelhorn, S. (2023, December 15). Sustainable gift wrapping. SDSU. https://library.sdsu.edu/news/sustainable-giftwrapping
Unwrapped: Perceptions of winter holiday consumerism, gift giving and waste - U.S. survey results. Unwrapped: Perceptions of Winter Holiday Consumerism, Gift Giving, and Waste - U.S. Survey Results. (n.d.). https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/sustainability/unwrapped