Sustainable Gift Giving: 20 Days of Sustainable Living Tips

20 Days of Sustainable Living Tips

This series is designed to showcase small, actionable steps that anyone can take in order to make your lifestyle more sustainable.  It doesn’t matter what level of sustainable living you are already on.  These tips are intended to help you more easily navigate this new “trend” of being kind to our earth.  Let’s work hard to make it more than a trend.  We can make it our lifestyle.  Learn daily tips here and on Facebook every weekday in February 2017 during a live chat about the Sustainable Living Tip of the day.  Everything can be done in a sustainable way.  Let’s tackle a new sustainable living issue today!

Quick Facts:

• “… an estimated 2.6 billion holiday cards are sold each year in the United States, enough to fill a football field 10 stories high.” [1]
• “Half of the paper America consumes is used to wrap and decorate consumer products (Source: The Recycler’s Handbook, 1990)” [2]

Sustainable gift giving

Holiday consumerism results in massive amounts of waste year round.  Packaging, shipping, batteries, cards, and ribbon are just a few of the things that quickly become trash.  What if we could remedy that?  The truth is, we can!  We can end the extreme wastefulness that comes with holiday gift giving by giving better gifts.  Better gifts don’t mean more expensive gifts.  Better gifts are gifts that take minimally from the earth and gifts that give back to the earth.

Sustainable gift guides

I’ve shared sustainable gift guides for several different holidays here before.  They are still great guides to go by.  While some of the specific gifts shown aren’t carried anymore, the shops and brands are great for finding new sustainable items.

• Whole Foods Christmas gift guide
• Eco-friendly & sustainable gifts for the home
• Ethical Paisley & Sparrow gift guide
• Sustainable Valentine’s Day gift guide
• Sustainable flowers
• Ethical & sustainable shops for your holiday wishlist shopping

My sustainable gift giving challenges to you

• Choose your next favorite gift-giving holiday to give out only or mainly sustainable gifts in sustainable packaging.
  • Halloween or Valentine’s Day – give trick-or-treaters and Valentines organic treats and sweets made by a local baker or candy maker.
• Instead of buying several boxed gift sets at retail stores, buy simple sustainable gifts in bulk to give something beautiful to everyone on your list.
  • Soy Candles, such as those from Feya Candles, make great gifts for friends, family members, educators, and colleagues.  Feya candles are amazing because not only are they made from soy, but they donate proceeds from each purchase to help feed people in need.
• Replace traditional Christmas stock stuffers with a more sustainable one.
  • I love everyone hand sanitizer sprays versus the small hand sanitizers that are made with things I don’t know.
• Use less wrapping paper!
  • Use a crate or reusable box that the gift recipient can repurpose.
  • Wrap with old newspaper and adorn with twine.

That’s right, even your hand sanitizer can be a little more earth-friendly.  As I always say, everything can be done sustainably.  You could either hastily continue to buy last minute gifts that continue to pollute the earth or make conscious gift choices.  Choose to buy a few more sustainable gifts for your loved ones during the holiday seasons.  As a result, your loved ones will be impressed.  Most importantly, the world will be a little better for it.

Addie