Create Memories, Not Trash: Tips for Reducing Waste During the Holidays

There are a lot of opportunities to generate waste during the holidays. Between gift giving, gift wrapping, decorations, dinner parties, leftovers, and more gatherings with family and friends. The EPA reports that between Thanksgiving and New Years the volume of waste from households in the US increases by nearly 25%, around 1 million tons. Read on for tips for zero waste gifts, wrapping, decorations and more. 

Top 4 Tips for Zero Waste Gifts

1. Gift of an experience

• Time with you
• A night out at a movie or a restaurant
• A trip or outdoor adventure: kayaking, hiking, indoor/outdoor climbling, camping, rafting, going to the ocean, a ski/snowboard pass, lessons for a sport or activity that your child enjoys and whatever else you can dream up.
• Music lessons, painting, or a class at a community college
• Tickets to a local event or travel somewhere to a museum, exhibit, event, fair, etc.

2. Homemade Gifts or bulk items in reusable (or recyclable) glass jars. Attach a recipe and it can be remade.

• Jams, pickles, mamalade, maple syrup
• Cookies, cakes, granola, pecan bars
• Balm, candles
• Bulk olives, pickled vegetables, candies, nuts, chocolates, and more

3. Buy used on Ebay or in a thrift store

• Gently used clothing, toys, furniture, appliances, a unique mug or bowl
• Antiques

4. Offering your services with a coupon or IOU

• Childcare for someone with little ones
• Cleaning the house
• Manual labor, garden work, house maintenance or projects
• Kids exchanging chores

More tips from: Trash is for Tossers, Zero Waste Home

Wrap it in meaning, not future trash.

We like wrapping paper, it's aesethically expressive and sometimes an extension of the gift or of the sentiment behind it. Yet, it's discouraging to think that something used for such a short time as gift wrap, that once its ripped off the present, it's sent to a landfill to sit forever. Short useful lifespan only to be a wasted resource in the landfill? Where's the fun in that?

If you do use wrapping paper ... ​Sort it, Don't waste it!
Trash:
Bows, tinsel, ribbons--these can be saved and reused for a few years until they fall apart and become trash.
Styrofoam (often packaging for large electronics)
Recycling or Reuse:
Wrapping paper, cardboard (including tubes from paper), boxboard, tissue paper
Backyard Compost:
Hemp or other natural twine, shredded newspaper, office paper, or brown paper bags 
​

Reusable or Recyclable Wrapping:
Reusable or recyclable wrapping paper is easy!

• Paper shopping bag, cut it open and flat, cut to size and wrap gift
• Cloth bag, piece of cloth. Tie with a piece of twine that can be composted
• Old maps, children's drawings, old newspapers
• More tips here...

Decorations and 5 ways to Go Green this Holiday Season

Zero Waste Decorations
Instead of plastic or tinsel to decorate your home for the holidays and end up in the landfill or taking up space on a shelf in your home, use natural decorations.
Use materials that can rot or be recycled.
​

• Pine boughs and branches and pine cones smell fresh, strings of cranberries and popcorn are colorful and organic. Mini squash and gourds left over from the garden or farmer's market. All can be composted or piled outside to rot.
• Oranges, sliced thin and dried in the oven, can be hung up as ornaments and that look beautiful with light coming through them.
• Make paper snowflakes or paper chains, both creative crafts to enjoy with kids.

 ​Bring broken strings of lights to the ARCC in Barre to be recycled, along with batteries and 40 plus other materials.

Tips for Going Green This Holiday
1. Use reusable bags when shopping for food, decorations, gifts, or anything. Keep them visible in your car or in the purse you carry so you don't forget them when you shop.

2. For parties, meals and gatherings, use reusable utensils and dishes. Give guests leftovers or save them for lunch the next day. Compost what you don't eat or look for a food scrap drop-off site near you.

3. Buy local when shopping for gifts this season. Support your downtown businesses!

4. Use or purchase LED lights. LEDs use 80% less electricity than incandensent bulbs.

​5. Worldwide, more than 15 billion batteries are produced and sold each year. Buy rechargable batteries instead of single use. Both can be recycled at the end of life, but the rechargables last a lot longer.

What Happens to your Tree after Christmas?

There are many places to drop off your trees after the holiday season throughout the district. Vermont's Universal Recycling Law bans clean wood waste, including trees from the landfill as of July 1, 2016.

**Don't forget to remove all tinsel, ornaments, and non-organic materials from the tree before dropping it off. 

This post is brought to you by Charlotte Low, CVSWMD Outreach Coordinator