Unassuming Waste

spreading a culture of sustainability

I know I’m not the only one showing up in your feed or inbox with tips for reducing waste or having a low waste holiday. I hope to take a slightly different spin and discuss how we can make an impact beyond our own choices. In this post you’ll find:

• kinship in being the “sustainable friend”

• a story about one of my favorite college assignments

• holiday waste

• spreading a culture of sustainability

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I’m so grateful for all who read this “newsletter”. This month marks one year of substack for me, and it’s my favorite place to create. I feel like I have the space to truly say and be exactly myself here, and that’s such a blessing. And so, I’m offering 25% annual plans this holiday season. You can get access to all of my archived posts as well as receive all paid posts for the next 12 months. PLUS this January I am launching a special series JUST for paid subscribers. It’s going to include customizable templates, pdfs you can save, and weekly video recaps…I’ll share the topic soon!

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Ignorance spreads. Seeing one person at the holiday party discard bows and all of a sudden it gives you a leash to do the same. I’ve noticed the opposite too, though. If I save my bow, everyone else will too. Or at the very least they give it to me.

And yes. It’s exhausting to be the person setting an example for the sake of our planet. Just one more exhausting hat to wear during the holiday season. Or, actually, all year round.

The hope, of course, is that you set the example enough times, take responsibility of others’ wastefulness enough times, and you can change their thinking, their actions, and the sustainable way becomes habit for them. Maybe they will carry on and be the example for another group.

Wishful thinking?

It does take more than being a good example to convince others to change their ways. Who am I to steal the joy of one person’s perfectly wrapped presents? And how do you know when greenwashing feels like the norm and is present in every ad that interrupts?

Typically providing some perspective helps. But even fun stats like “if we saved all the ribbon used for Christmas presents this year, we can wrap the earth!” don’t seem to have an impact.

I know I’m preaching to the choir here, so I’m trying to give not only tips for reducing waste, but tips for convincing others to as well. AND reducing our mental load as the “sustainable friend”.

General Waste

I took a human geography class as a senior in college and it was so interesting that I would have changed my major or minored in the topic if I took it as a freshman. In the class, our big paper was about tracking our garbage. It was mind blowing to me to learn that my trash traveled all the way to landfills in North Carolina (from Syracuse, NY) and that most of the items I throw into the recycling bin with pride actually aren’t recycled. Beyond that, I was shocked with how little I actually thought about my trash once it was picked up each week. We’ve turned a human experience of consumption, and therefore waste, into something invisible. But like most things we ignore, it has huge consequences.

I pointed out in a recent post that most of us immediately gravitate towards a quick fix, a solution we can buy. Greenwashing has provided us with that. Greenwashing is an unethical marketing approach used by many companies to make consumers feel as though their purchase is supporting environmental causes or at the very least, that the product they’re buying is environmentally-friendly. Greenwashing, with empty phrases like, “eco-friendly” and “farm fresh”, make us as consumers feel like we’re doing something good and often cause us to buy more, or at least spend more.

I know I’ve fallen prey to sustainable claims and fluffy language that takes the meaning out of words like “conscious”. Just like being the saver of bows during Christmas gatherings, researching the sustainability claims of every purchase I make is exhausting.

The good news is that the collective WE wants to do good. Greenwashing works. Research shows that 66% of consumers will spend more on sustainable products¹ Unfortunately the best data I can find with a general internet search is from 2018 but it shows that the average American produces 4.9 pounds of waste a DAY.² Five pounds…that’s mashed potatoes for your holiday dinner, the kettle bell you use in the morning, the bags of sugar or flour you guy at the grocery store, a ream of printer paper, or a 2-liter bottle of soda. I’m tempted to collect my trash all day to see how I compare to this average…stay tuned.

Wrapping Paper & Bows

Photo by DiEtte Henderson on Unsplash

This whole post is inspired by bows. My coworker buys oodles of ribbons each Christmas to elaborately decorate each present. It’s an effort I admire but for multiple reasons cannot replicate. When asked if she saves the bows after the presents are unwrapped, she laughed and said “uh, no”. I gave her the fun fact about wrapping the Earth in ribbon, but it didn’t make an impact at all.

We used to save every bow for my grandma to reuse. And these were the dollar store variety with the peel and stick backs, all held together with staples. She would reuse the same bag of bows for years. I can’t remember her ever asking, it was just some thing we all knew to do.

Memories like this have helped me so much on my self actualization journey. In a lot of ways, I am so very different than or at least operate under very different circumstances than my grandmas. But, then I realize that I am the one pushing home baked goods on everyone who comes over, I am the bow saver at gatherings, and I am the taker of zero shit.

So, yes, I did call my coworker out on their contribution to the insane amount of bow and wrapping paper waste. Over 2 million pounds of wrapping paper ends up in landfills each year. That’s equivalent to one of the oldest and largest sequoia trees or about six blue whales. The number is almost too big for me to fathom.

But, wrapping paper is recyclable, right? Yes, as long as it’s pure paper. How are you supposed to know if wrapping paper used by someone else is pure paper? Sure, you could take your chances and recycle it anyways, but I learned during my human geography assignment that this innocent act of protecting our conscience actually does more harm. It can cause harm to equipment (probably not likely with wrapping paper, but in general), increase costs and overall resources for sorting (if your municipality even has a sorting practice in place), and can even decrease the value or usability of actual recyclables.³

Of course, the most effective and efficient way to manage waste is to not create it in the first place.

Unwanted Gifts/Packaging

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

We all know the feeling of being given a gift from someone when we don’t have one to give in return, right? It sucks. I spent quite a few years trying to avoid this situation by making sure I had a small gift for everyone I interact with on a frequent basis. Switching gears to almost exclusively homemade or homegrown gifting has meant that we give far fewer gifts and the likelihood of being in this situation again is high. It’s a risk I’m willing to take when I consider the gifts I was giving, and, if I’m being totally honest, the ones I was receiving as well.

I happened to be outside a bath and body works the other day and was so taken back by the number of consumers in the store and number of bags they left the store with. Part of this is my own aversion to anything scented since starting my homesteading journey and making all of our own soaps, deodorants, and anything smelly (or lack thereof). Do people really want to receive this stuff for Christmas? In my opinion, it’s a lazy and meaningless gift.

Whether it’s intoxicating body lotion or a gadget purchased from an end cap on the way out of a box store, the numbers show that 50% of people report receiving unwanted gifts, totaling around $16 billion dollars spent on unwanted gifts each year. And what happens to them? Many just sit unused. Some get returned. Others get donated. 4% of them go directly to the trash.⁴

I know it’s not what we want to hear because meaningful gift giving is hard. It requires a lot of thought, careful curation of goods, or a ton of time handcrafting something. This is why we end up giving a lot less. Our friends typically now get a basket of cookies and bread with something homemade like cocoa mix or tomato jam thrown in. It’s not the most exciting gift, but it’s consumed, appreciated, and it’s an act of resistance against the societal pressure to make this season all about capitalism. This type of giving is also a nudge to those you exchange with that you value these seemingly lower luster gifts too.

I shared more about this in my December monthly mindset post.

Action items for reducing wrapping and gift waste this holiday:

• random gift exchanges, encourage less gift giving

• provide a list of homemade or second hand items that you’d like to receive, encouraging less unwanted gifts

• enact creative gift giving ideas like sticking to stocking stuffers or limiting gifts to children, encourages less gift giving

• wrap with reusable fabrics or bags, encourages less wrapping paper waste

• display gifts in action for large items, encourages less wrapping paper waste

I’d love to hear your ideas too!

Food

If you’ve been around for a while you know that food waste happens to be one of my pet peeves. Food waste is a year round issue, one that’s largely perpetuated by big food and grocery stores. Our food system is designed around an illusion of choice between perfect looking food. The reality of food is that it’s all around us, should be consumed seasonally, is largely imperfect, and that the choices available in stores barely scrapes the surface of what’s available.

Holiday food waste is a whole different story. Similar to gift giving, we don’t want to show up empty handled and end up paying an insane amount for something that’s not fresh and no one wants to eat.

Food is central to celebrations, and therefore we place a high importance on feasts and gluttony this time of the year.

The data on food waste is staggering. I’ll spare you because, again, I know I’m preaching to the choir. With food it’s never that “simple” though. Food is never just food. So food waste is not just food waste. Food waste also means water waste, energy waste from production and transportation of food, financial waste, single use plastics and other packaging waste, and if animals are on the table, life wasted.

Action items for reducing food waste this holiday:

• anticipate leftovers, encourage others to bring tupperware

• plan ahead, encourage a pot luck type event where each person brings part of the meal

• cookie swap, encourage each person to bring one kind of cookie and for all to leave with an assorted tray

• donate food to homeless shelters, encourages awareness of waste

• use small plates and bowls, encourages smaller helpings and less unrecoverable food (food left on plates)

I’d love to hear your ideas too!

Spreading Sustainability

To be clear, I’m far from perfect on the sustainability front. I do use some wrapping paper. I do buy stuff just to take up space sometimes. As with any aspirational post I share, this is not about perfection. The burden isn’t on you. I know how that feels, and that’s why I hope to make talking about the waste you see as you celebrate the holidays a little easier and less uncomfortable.

Often the topic of sustainability can evoke feelings of shame and guilt. It can make it difficult to talk with others, but you shouldn’t have the health of the planet as an invisible burden on your shoulders alone. When talking with others, I…

• point out that phrases like “eco-friendly” lack meaning because they’re not regulated, companies can slap them on anything without changing any production practices

• bring sustainability up in conversation regularly in an unthreatening and casual way

  • instead of responding directly to an action, I instead prefer to introduce the issue when it comes up in a tv show or commercial we are watching together

• identify barriers to making sustainable decisions

  • if cost is a barrier, I share that sustainable options for me are actual cheaper (no paper towels means reusable kitchen towels, homemade dishwasher powder costs 1/3 storebought, etc.)

To reduce the mental load of being the “sustainable friend”, I…

• lead by example, but provide actionable tips and convenient ways for others to follow suit

• share social media accounts or websites that promote sustainability so I am not their only source of this information

• set boundaries for my participation in events and gatherings

• celebrate progress

Finally, it’s worth touching on the reality that most often sustainability measures and gift giving in general are often the sole responsibility of women. This came up recently when I shared about my family’s tradition of a homemade gift exchange and promoted homemade gift giving this holiday season. I’m lucky that my husband helps out, both with gift ideation and creation, but it’s definitely true for me. I stress out a lot more than my husband does and put a much greater importance on creating homemade gifts.

I’d love to hear what you think of this post!

1. https://itechgrc.com/greenwashing-u-s-elections-anti-esg-movement-whats-brewing-for-2024/

2. https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials

3. https://www.epa.gov/recycle/frequent-questions-recycling#:~:text=Putting%20items%20in%20the%20recycling,other%20at%20local%20recycling%20centers.

4. https://www.becomingminimalist.com/rethink-holidays/