How to be less wasteful this Christmas
These days, consumers are becoming increasingly environmentally focussed. And rightfully so — with the future of the plant hanging in the balance it’s necessary for us all to take a step back from the Christmas marketing, and work out a way to enjoy the festivities without creating unnecessary waste.
To help, we’ve put together some easy steps you can take to cut down on your waste whilst still enjoying the most wonderful time of the year.
Buy fewer gifts
Although it is compelling to buy every novelty pair of sparkly socks you can find in Primark — buying fewer gifts is key. This doesn’t necessarily mean spending less, but rather shifting the focus onto one or two larger gifts that you know the person will really like rather than panic buying whatever you can find on December 22nd. The key here is to be prepared — try and find out what people might actually want for Christmas, and buy gifts in advance to avoid the last-minute mad rush that often precedes £20 spent on toiletry sets in Boots. We’ve all been there!
If you’d really like to cut down, why not try splitting gifts with your family or group of friends, so each person in the family/friendship group receives one large gift each that everyone has contributed to, rather than a myriad of smaller presents.
Consider the wrapping
There’s a good reason why ‘brown paper packages tied up with string’ should be one of your favourite things — they’re much less wasteful than traditional Christmas wrapping. Most of the wrapping paper used at Christmas (anything that is metallic, has glitter on it, has a texture to it or has sellotape stuck to it ) is not recyclable and can contaminate recycling. Take into account that each year at Christmas, people in the UK throw away approx 226,800 miles of wrapping paper — enough to wrap around the earth nine times — and you can see that this is a serious issue.
Using brown paper and string is a much more eco-conscious way of wrapping gifts. Plus — if people unwrap them neatly — you can even collect up the paper to use again next year. Or, you know, go crazy and rip into them safe in the knowledge that the paper can be recycled.
Buy experiences rather than gifts
An even better way to cut down on gift waste is to buy experiential gifts, rather than physical ones. Not only do you cut down on the wrapping, a study from San Francisco State University discovered that people “enjoy greater well-being from life experiences and consider them to be a better use of money” than material gifts. Taking the focus away from accumulating items and putting it on enjoying experiences is a great way for you to cut down on waste at Christmas, and also throughout the rest of the year. There’s a multitude of great experiences available — so get looking and booking for your loved ones!
If you like the idea of splitting the cost of gifts with family and friends — be that a larger, more meaningful present, or a lovely experience gift — why not download the What We Want app?
What We Want lets you share the cost of gifts with family and friends, making cutting down Christmas waste a super easy process where everyone (including Mother Earth…) gets what they want.
