3 Easy Ways to Reduce Holiday Waste This Season.

Did you know that if every family reused just two feet of holiday ribbon, the 38,000 miles of ribbon saved could tie a bow around the entire planet? That would be a wonderful gift for Mother Earth! According to Stanford University, Americans generate an additional seven million pounds of waste between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. While everyone enjoys opening gifts around the holidays, there are changes we can make, both big and small – to make a difference! If every American family wrapped just 3 presents in re-used materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields. If you’re planning to shop this holiday season, here are a few more ways to do so sustainably:

• Ask Amazon Prime to pack your order in one box! – Did you know that you have the option to ask Amazon Prime to consolidate your purchases? According to Amazon’s website, your Prime orders will be consolidated into the fewest number of packages possible, with less single-use packaging. You just have to ask! Note that your items can take longer to ship this way as they’ll hold your box until all of your items are available, so get your shopping done ahead of time!
• Try using a search engine that gives back. When you search for those stocking stuffers, save the sea at the same time with Ocean Hero. Advertisers pay Ocean Hero to advertise on their search engine. Ocean Hero then takes that money and hires collectors to recover ocean bound plastic. Collectors can then sell the plastic they collect back to PlasticBank in exchange for additional funds. Ocean Hero estimates that for every five searches, one bottle is collected. Since the program began in January 2009, Ocean Hero has recovered more than 10 Million bottles from the ocean! Now this is a mission we can get behind!
• Drive change with your dough – Buy from organizations that have transparent sustainable practices and clearly state what their products are made from. Keep an eye out for “greenwashing,” or companies that refer broadly to “sustainability” without specifics! If we continue to support companies who pay attention to sustainability with our dollars, those who don’t will be forced to change their ways