Some holiday tips to reduce waste

If you’re trying to reduce your waste, holiday shopping can be a challenge. You don’t want to buy someone one more thing they absolutely don’t need but you still want to get them something. And then there’s the wrapping and cards Oy vey! Every year about 540,000 tons of wrapping paper is thrown out and ends up in landfills. So. Much. Waste.

I’ll share with you a few things I’ve done this past year. For Valentine’s Day I sent my kid’s Chipotle gift cards, but instead of mailing them a card with a gift card in it, I sent them e-gift cards with a note saying I love you, here’s lunch on me. Most sites that offer e-gift cards have a place for a personal message. For our anniversary instead of gifts we went out for breakfast and went whale watching. We’d never been and it was a beautiful day out on the water. Of course there’s good old cash, I forgot to get (or make) my niece a graduation card so I used Zelle through my bank and transferred her gift right there at the dinner table. Easy peasy.

Our daily choices can make a huge impact, it may not feel like much but trust me it matters. Here are some other ideas:

• Support small businesses, there’s lots of cool hand made things at the local farmers markets and usually they don’t have packaging. Think soaps, lip balms, bath bombs etc. Buying things at local businesses cuts down on transportation pollution.

• Get your coffee or tea loving friend or family member a reusable coffee cup and an e gift card to their favorite coffee place (preferably a small business).

• Give the gift of quality time, especially to your aging grandparents and parents. Take them for lunch, dinner, a movie, a pedicure. Go to a concert, bake cookies, watch a football game. Whatever it is actually doesn’t matter much, they just want your time. They get lonely and need to know that they’re still important amidst our busy lives.

• Shop secondhand. I have found some incredible deals at thrift stores, like $200+ premium denim jeans for $15!!! And I LOVE Poshmark, I have found amazing things with the tags still on for less than half of the retail price..

• As for wrapping, use unexpected things like old paper shopping bags, news paper, cloth scraps, magazine pages. Bulk food, grocery bags or pillow cases work they and serve a dual purpose. Bows made from fabric or twine. Pine cones, cinnamon sticks, dried citrus fruit are all cute and compostable. Or you can use stuff that’s been in your Christmas box for years like I am.

What is actually recycleable?

Recycling can be very confusing and somewhat frustrating. According to the UC Berkeley Office of Sustainability the following is what’s actually recycleable.

Recycling must be CLEAN and DRY.

⁃ If bottles and cans have food or liquid in them, they will be thrown away at the recycling plant. Moreover, if a bag of recycling is more than 20% contaminated, either with food or non-recyclables, ALL OF IT will be landfilled.

⁃ If paper is wet or damp (or gets wet or damp because of wet bottles and cans) it will go to landfill.

What is recyclable?

⁃ Clean, dry aluminum foil (feel free to wash and dry it if it has food on it)

⁃ Aluminum cans

⁃ Plastic drink bottles/milk jugs, some plastic containers but not most

⁃ Glass

⁃ Clean, dry paper & cardboard (egg cartons too!)

What isn’t recyclable?

⁃ Film plastic (plastic bags or anything like that); they clog the machines at the plant

⁃ Coffee cups/boba cups/Solo cups

⁃ Anything contaminated with food

⁃ Any mixed material. For example, orange juice cartons are plastic layered with paper. They cannot be separated, and therefore can’t be recycled.

If you don’t sort properly, or if a few people don’t sort properly and contaminate our bin, all of our efforts to cycle resources will be wasted. So it is very important that this is followed.

Also, I encourage you all to avoid  packaging whenever possible. You can buy reusable mesh bags to put produce in instead of using plastic bags. The Strauss milk company sells milk in glass ($3) that you can return to the store and they give you $2 back when you return the bottle for reuse. These are two examples, but the best trash, and the best recycling, is the trash that was never created in the first place.