While we love the holiday season’s festivities, it’s not exactly the tidiest season of the year! With gift packing, wrapping paper, ribbons, and bows, the holiday season typically includes a lot of garbage!
Here are a few tips to keep your home clean during boxing week:
Have a recycle bin by the tree
On Christmas morning, have a box by the tree to put used wrapping paper inside as you open presents. A fun idea is to decorate the box with wrapping paper like a present! Have each person neatly fold their wrapping paper and throw it in the box. Not only will this keep paper garbage at bay, but you also minimize the chance of accidentally throwing out a gift that was mixed in the used wrapping paper.
You can also minimize waste by trimming and neatly folding wrapping paper to use again. Gift bags are great because they last for several uses and can be “regifted” next season without the paper waste.
Give experiential or virtual gifts
Make a pact with your family to minimize waste this holiday season. Consider gifting virtual gift cards, rather than physical ones, and more experiential gifts, rather than toys and physical gifts with lots of excess packaging. This will go a LONG way to minimizing garbage at the end of the holidays.
If you are giving physical gifts, consider Furoshiki – the Japanese way of wrapping gifts using cloth instead of wrapping paper. You can also make your wrapping paper from those large sheets of packing paper in shipping boxes or cloth bags from the grocery store. Or you could purchase a nice backpack or tote bag and put your presents inside.
Upcycle where you can
Many of us don’t know what to do with Christmas cards at the end of the season. Instead of storing them in a box, consider upcycling them. You can use them to make gift tags for next year. Or turn them into a collage to create a one-of-a-kind holiday decor item.
Here are some more cool ways to upcycle your holiday cards.
Be mindful of beverage containers
While pop cans are recyclable, they still require energy to break down and process. Instead, if you’re planning to have guests, purchase larger 2-litre pop bottles and use glasses, or get a soda maker and carbonate beverages in a reusable glass bottle for zero waste.
Let’s all do our part to minimize waste this holiday season. Consider gifting fewer packaged gifts and consider more experiential gifts. Reuse or upcycle as much wrapping as possible before putting the rest in the recycle bin.
Together we can minimize waste and protect Mother Earth.
As this is our last post of 2022, we wish you a safe New Year’s Eve and a happy start to 2022. We’ll be back in January with more articles and content to help you love your home!