Gift giving should be a special and positive experience all round right? However, the amount of waste produced increases by approximately 25% every holiday season.
By shopping sustainably this year you can bring joy to your friends and family as well as the planet. It is a moment of giving from your heart, not just any thing, but something special. After all, the Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, who was born to bring peace to the world. Many of us us our giving as an opportunity to help and be kind to people around us, it’s not about spending a ton of money on materialised goods. This blog will hopefully inspire you to shop with a more conscious, eco-friendly and loving outlook this Christmas.
Whoever you’re shopping for this Christmas, whatever their likes and interests, we’ve got you covered with zero waste gifts suitable for absolutely everyone. You can view our full Zéro Christmas range here.
I’ll start with kids as I think they could be the trickiest to come up with sustainable and eco-friendly gift ideas for. When we’re thinking about what we could buy for a child our mind jumps straight to toys, why is that when there are so many much more thoughtful gifts out there. One, for example, being Eco Warriors Flash Cards Game by Helpful Kidz. Not only is this a fun activity but it is also educational, and due to it being 100% plastic free it’s a completely zero waste gift. This is a perfect example of what we mean by conscious gift giving! Other ideas include bamboo kitchen utensils (these could be used in the actual kitchen or just a toy), natural bath bombs, a bamboo toothbrush, vegan and cruelty free soap bars or body butters, or reusable cotton patterned face mask – the list is endless really!
Now let’s talk ideas for men, another one that may seem difficult to come up with ideas for at first but once you’ve heard a few you’ll realise the options are far from limited. Self care isn’t just for women, most men also have a skin care routine and hair to wash, care for and shave, but let’s steer clear from the plastic packaged products that are filled with all sorts of non natural chemicals and ingredients and keep thinking with a green mind. Skin care products made with natural ingredients are so much kinder to your skin as well as the environment and generally are suitable for very sensitive skin. We have plenty of gift ideas for men at TCC ranging from body, beard and shaving oils, hair and body wash cubes, bamboo hair brushes, body butters and plastic-free razors – all completely natural, plastic-free, vegan and cruelty free of course!
Moving on to women, again the options are endless. We could stick with the self care, pamper theme – maybe a natural bath soak, shampoo and conditioner bars in their favourite scent, reusable cotton makeup remover and cleansing pads or a face mask, or we could go a little more practical – I know a lot of women who have wanted to swap to reusable sanitary products however have been a little put off by the price difference between them and their single use counterparts, so what a great gift a reusable sanitary pad, menstrual cup or period pants would be! Most single use tampons, pads and panty liners are generally 90% plastic and along with their packaging and individual wrapping generate more than 200,000 tonnes of waste per year. Reusable sanitary products do come at more of an upfront cost but you don’t need to keep buying more each month, you probably actually end up spending less in the long than if you were to keep buying single use ones each month, so they are completely cost effective as well as friendly the environment, another great example of a conscious and practical gift!
Your head is probably overflowing with sustainable gift ideas now but we still have plenty more, take a look at our Zero Waste Home collection. I know I’d love to receive any product from this range as a gift. A candle, wax melts or something for the home such as a pretty coaster, bowl, or trinket dish, or a cushion cover or throw are always a great gift idea in my eyes and even better when they’re vegan, natural and sustainable!
Here’s a list of all the Zéro Waste Gift Sets we have available at TCC this Christmas:
> Zéro Moi
The gifts you buy aren’t the only thing to be mindful of but what you use to wrap them. Wrapping paper generally isn’t recycled and as a lot is lined with plastic it can’t be recycled either therefore ending up in landfill. Glitter encrusted paper is especially harmful to our environment. Again, it can’t be recycled but also the tiny specks of plastic that make up the glitter end up in our oceans, they’re then ingested by marine animals which can have a fatal outcome. There are so many sustainable and eco-friendly alternatives out there, a lot that come at no extra cost so it’s a shock to me that non recyclable wrapping paper is still so widely used. One alternative you could use is plain brown paper or craft paper, you can decorate these yourself with pens or ribbons that can then be reused. Another alternative is using old newspaper pages. This year my family have been saving the patterned paper that our bamboo loo rolls come individually wrapped in to wrap our presents in. At TCC we have a whole selection of patterned recycled and recyclable paper gift wrap, fabric gift wraps that can be reused countless times – therefore making them extremely cost effective as well as being very aesthetically pleasing – paper tapes and 100% recycled Christmas cards.
So let’s think green and sustainable this holiday season and give to our environment as well as our loved ones.