December Monthly Roundup: Gift Edition!
Who doesn’t love the Holiday Season? The one thing to not love so much however, is the amount of waste that is produced in America around this time of year. According to the EPA, the amount of household waste produced between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day usually goes up 25 percent. So make this Holiday Season a more Sustainable Season with these gift suggestions from our editors.
Monica
What is more sustainable than realizing that we don’t need more stuff to be happy. Instead of gifting a thing, give someone an experience. Obviously this can be tailored to your own and the gift receivers’ interests. Go hiking, see a play, try skydiving. But most importantly do something together with the people you care about.
Malini
I agree that we should reduce the clutter our lives, but some of us are hopelessly plugged in and will continue to give and receive gadgets and gizmos. For all of your wired friends, consider gifting practical (though notedly unsexy) energy saving devices! My personal wish list includes a batch of rechargeable batteries + charger. It’s surprisingly hard for me to make the effort to drop off alkaline batteries for recycling. Low self-discharge batteries are especially nifty for moderate to high drain devices, like cameras or video game controllers (which are also expensive enough to protect against leaky alkalines) and are guaranteed to make the user feel good for not contributing toxic metals to landfills. Moral superiority really is the best gift.
Ryan
My sustainable gift option for the holidays is the MAVEA 1001125 Elemaris Water Filtration Pitcher. The debate about consumer action versus structural change notwithstanding, it is an atrocity that the average American consumes more than 35 gallons of bottled water per year—a figure that is expected to grow. While the United States has some of the safest and healthiest drinking water supplies in the world, many understandably place a premium on taste, which is where MAVEA comes in. What makes this better than Brita, however, is that MAVEA has a filter takeback and recycle program, which allows you to ship your used filters back for free. Thus, not only would you no longer be supporting one of the biggest scams of the century, but you would also be helping to address our waste issue. Enough with the bottled water, and Happy Holidays!
