Try giving differently this season to keep unnecessary waste from entering our landfills. Need some inspiration? Metro Vancouver's Merry Memory Maker has over 170 ideas to get you started.
Waste-Free Holidays
Give a gift that friends and family can use to help reduce their waste footprint. Some ideas include: beeswax food wrappers, reusable mugs/bottles or lunch boxes, bamboo toothbrushes, stainless steel straws, or houseplants.
Canadians will send 100,000 elephants worth of wrapping paper to the dump this year and Christmas presents are a big culprit.
Zero Waste Canada, a Vancouver-based advocacy group, estimates each Canadian tosses about 50 kilograms of garbage over the holidays, 25 per cent more than the rest of the year, thanks to the purchase of 3,000 tonnes of foil, 2.6 billion Christmas cards and six millions rolls of tape.
No need to purchase gift tag stickers when you can use Christmas cards you've collected from over the years.
Skip the wrapping paper and try out the art of Furoshiki using fabrics from around the house. Furoshiki is a Japanese cloth-folding technique that allows you to wrap objects of various shapes and sizes in a single piece of cloth.
You can also do Furoshiki using wrapping paper. No plastic tape or bows required!
Have a friend or family member who's trying to reduce trash? Give them the tools to succeed!