green gift giving tips

By the amazing EcoDiva contributor Karen Lee of EcoKaren.com

I love giving gifts more than receiving them.

I know that sounds corny but it’s not just because “Tis better to give than receive”.

Oh, I L O V E receiving gifts – trust me. But I don’t always get what I want when I receive a gift, especially during holiday and that creates some sense of anxiety for me. I don’t know whether I’ll get the same candle set from my neighbor or an exotic perfume that promises to “drive your man wild” from a friend, miles away. And often, unbeknownst to me, I become a statistic of those who have received an useless gift, yet again. That sounded self absorbed, doesn’t it? But my reason is further from being selfish.

Americans spend over 2 billion dollars on wasteful gifts every year. That means that you have received gifts that you haven’t even opened since last year because they are not what you wanted or needed. (or may be you were one of the more brave ones who returned it or exchanged it secretly and if that’s the case, I salute you.) And sadly, the reverse is also true – you probably gave an useless gift to someone last year although you spent time thinking about it, buying it, and wrapping it. (”Oh, he is going to love this cotton vest. It’ll keep him warm in the library while he’s studying. Besides, he’ll look so preppy and the girls will think he’s so cute.” Uh huh…and he conveniently loses it somewhere in his room.)

So, be more thoughtful about the recipient and the planet when you give this year. Let’s not create more waste.

On that note, here are some green gift giving tips.

Don’t gift wrap with new wrapping paper. Put the gifts in gift bags that can be re-used every year. If you must wrap, use brown craft paper (from supermarkets), recycled wrapping paper, newspaper, magazines, cloth wraps (furoshiki) or bags and reuse saved wrapping paper from last year.

Hand Stitched Vintage Furoshiki by ecokaren

Use saved boxes like cereal boxes, shoe boxes, jewelry boxes, hat boxes, etc. to wrap instead of buying new boxes or asking for boxes at the store.

Cereal box makes great jewelry box

Use gift tags that can be converted to ornaments, serving double purpose.

Gift tag turned ornament

Use shredded paper instead of plastic bubble wraps for shipping.

Try not to buy impractical gifts that end up in trash. Ask yourself, “Would I use this?” before buying it.

When you do decide what you want to buy, please support local crafts and artisans, such as Etsy (you can choose sellers in your state or town when you search) – it saves gas on shipping and you can’t go wrong with love that went into making them and the quality is incomparable to mass produced goods.

Try giving “green” gifts instead of “plastic” gifts. Handmade with organic and non-toxic resources are biodegradable and is good for you and the planet.

If you want to go one step further, consider giving green alternative gifts to materialistic gifts that might become useless. Furthermore, these gifts do not need gift wrapping. Check out these organizations that do good things for the environment and how you can donate in honor of a recipient, plant a tree in someone’s name or adopt a polar bear.