5 Easy Ways to Make your Christmas a Little Greener in 2018

28 Nov 2018

We’re green beyond just our brand, and I don’t know about you but I’m pretty disappointed in the state of the planet in 2018. Our quest for convenience brought us here, to our plastic-filled planet, and now it’s time we all started choosing the health of our planet over said quest for convenience. Here are 5 easy ways to make your Christmas a little greener.

1. Ditch the gift wrap

This will save you time spent wrapping, as well as time spent cleaning up the masses of paper once everyone has devoured the gifts under the tree. Instead, opt for reusable gift bags or good old Christmas stockings.

2. Skip single use cutlery and cups

No one likes cleaning up dirty dishes after feasting on Christmas dinner, but we all know that there’s no more room on this planet for us to dispose of single use plastic. While you’re at it, skip the coated ‘eco’ paper plates. Those with ‘bio’ labels may not be as eco-friendly as you might think.

3. Buy local

Not only does this help out local business owners, but locally sourced gifts means less freight-related environmental impact this Christmas. Have you been to a local Christmas market yet? They're a fantastic day out for friends, flat mates and families. You'll get that 'Christmas feeling' while you find beautiful handmade gifts and make the most of the coffee carts and food trucks!

4. Buy eco friendly

If you’re doing secret Santa or playing that hilarious Christmas game that goes by many names (and by many sets of rules!) you’ll probably be buying a gift worth $5 or $10 bucks. These gifts are usually plastic crap that no one wants, or chocolates wrapped in plastic that no one’s waistline needs. Instead, go for an eco gift such as metal straws, cool reusable shopping bags, bio-friendly produce bags, or quality drink bottles to replace plastic ones that some people are still using (if you’re one of these people, consider yourself snubbed).

5. Don’t buy people gifts for the sake of it

I wholeheartedly believe in this. Buying crap for the sake of gift giving means that Kiwi family’s budgets are stretched, and the planet fills up faster with stuff we don’t need.

We’ve all got someone in our life who is hard to buy for because ‘they already have everything’ or ‘if they want something they will just buy it themselves’. If that’s the case, don’t buy them anything. In 2018, most of us are mostly lacking in time so instead of a gift, can you do that person a favour? Or can you buy them a voucher for an experience?

I recently wanted to thank a surgeon for an incredible job he did. Naturally a gift would be appropriate but a surgeon at the top of his game (and taking home a tidy sum) doesn’t really need another set of cuff links. So instead, I wrote him a card (like, I actually wrote a well thought-out message). And, I gave him something money can’t buy so easily, a feed of whitebait my dad caught on the West Coast. He was chuffed. I can only hope he recycled the Glad Snap Lock bag I gave it to him in...