Some Small Tips for Holiday Shopping

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Couple of tips for you as you are out shopping this Black Friday or during the holidays for that matter.

1. Bring your own shopping bag to put your stuff in, even if they don’t offer a discount, bring your own bag anyways, it feels good, you aren’t wasting the retailers time to bag your stuff, and most importantly you are helping save the environment by not using plastic bags.
2. If you don’t have the above option or don’t want to be carrying a bag around, ask if they can bag your items in paper, but really, the best way is to bring your own bag.
3. Ask if the company takes back packaging after the item has been opened. Shopping definitely creates a lot of waste because of the way things are packaged. Some companies even offer coupons for this sort of thing as an incentive to bring back packaging so it for sure will be recycled.
4. Buy products with minimal packaging.
5. Find products that were sustainably made, packaged, and help the environment in some way.
6. Make sure when gifts are opened that as much of the packaging is recycled or found uses for after the fact. A lot of my family uses plastic grocery bags as garbage bags around the house and use them over and over again until they are too smelly. Granted, they are still thrown away in the end, but their use is extended awhile longer before ending up in a landfill.
7. Try carpool with others that are going to the same shops as you are. Don’t drive do the store that is a block away, just park the car and walk. Take public transportation if you can or ride a bike.
8. Try shop online if you can, no bags, no emissions from cars. Though you have to factor in shipping and the packaging that it comes in, but that’s normally cardboard and super easy to recycle.

In the end, just be aware of the products you are buying and the amount of packaging that comes from them, there are ways to get to and from your shopping destinations in a sustainable eco-friendly way. As well as making sure that the end products’ packaging is pulled apart as much as possible and the pieces that can be recycled, are recycled.