Are you celebrating a plastic-free Christmas? 🎄
We all know by now that plastic isn’t great, but is it possible to celebrate a plastic-free or plastic-reduced Christmas?
Of course it’s possible!
We asked you, our engaged customers, if you could share your best tips for a plastic-minimized Christmas. Here are the best tips!
Jennie from ekoliv.blogg.se:
Go for wooden toys for the little kids. Or why not nice wooden kitchen utensils for adults?
Another nice gift to get more people on board with a plastic-free life is to give, for example, bee’s wraps or pretty fabric fruit bags.
Try to buy a lot in bulk for the Christmas table and bring your own bags to the store. Wrap gifts in, for example, packing material, old bags, newspapers, or fabric. If you need tape for wrapping, you can easily reduce the amount significantly; often large pieces are used when a very small piece is enough to keep the paper in place.
And last but not least, RECYCLE the plastic you can’t avoid. I log all recycling in the Bower app and earn rewards at the same time 😊
Diana:
We celebrate a plastic-free Christmas by both decorating a potted plant year after year and making gifts for our loved ones. The potted plant grows continuously, so there’s more to decorate each year. It’s sustainable!
And the gift-giving itself works like this: we write one name on a slip of paper for each Christmas participant, draw lots, and then each person makes a gift for a family member. It’s fun, tasty, and feels meaningful since the gift also becomes personal 🙂
This year I’m going to make granola and bake seed crackers, in the name of health, for someone who needs it 😉
Here’s a little picture of our Christmas tree from above. It really looks like a tree too:
Maja:
My very best tip is to really skip all unnecessary plastic bags, freezer bags, and all plastic wrap. Freeze in old milk cartons, bread bags, and other unavoidable packaging. Glass jars (if you don’t fill them to the brim) work perfectly…. and get a couple of beeswax wraps (you can actually make them yourself very easily!)
Christel:
I can warmly recommend Bee’s Wrap, it’s perfect for covering Christmas food in the fridge instead of plastic and is easy to use and clean! I also use plates of different sizes as matching bowls! You can also cover food with wax paper or baking paper!
If you go on a picnic, pack sandwiches and other food in wax paper or why not with Bees’s wrap!
Always buy loose items in paper bags where possible and sort food waste like peels in paper bags for recycling!
Don’t buy Christmas gifts made of plastic; they’re usually available in other materials!
Eva:
I make my own food which I always store in glass jars. I reuse everything I can, both food and stuff.
I make my own lingonberry or pine branch wreaths that I give away for the first Sunday of Advent. I avoid buying anything plastic.
I remold my candles from leftover old candles.
I take materials from the forest to decorate with since I’m a true forest lover and that’s where I feel best. I pick many of my medicinal herbs in the forest.
Christmas for me is the scent of candles… (NOT palm oil), the smell of fir and pine branches and hyacinths, my amaryllis that returns every year, lots of singing and music, and helping someone who isn’t feeling well.
Elina:
I planned to use old paper shopping bags inside and out to wrap this year’s Christmas gifts to give them a nice vintage look. Skipping tags and plastic ribbons, instead decorating by writing rhymes or drawing nice motifs directly on the gift and adorning with beautiful wax seals 🎁🎄
Throwing away all the nice paper and ribbons has always felt like such a waste to me, both for the wallet and the environment, while I appreciate giving nicely wrapped presents, so this felt like a fun alternative with lots of possibilities.
So this year we simply match the plastic-free gift with its outside.
Merry Christmas ❤️
P.S. Two of the Christmas gifts I wrapped using paper bags 🤗
Elin:
My best tip for a plastic-free Christmas is: It’s really mostly about doing less, buying less, and stepping back, finding the joy and essence of Christmas. A little poem to symbolize my thoughts ❤️
Avoid wrapping paper and ribbons,
instead learn how to make it
a nice bow from old love
wallpaper and you'll see you'll learn
New tricks to improve things
With small steps we can climb
Helping each other and encouraging
Both big and small
Because Christmas holds simple beauty
Take it easy and be with your loved ones
Skip plastic and other junk
That's how Santa wants to come here
Then he happily stops by
And see your Christmas is plastic-free
Merry Christmas
Karolina:
My best trick to reduce plastic and unnecessary waste is to try to buy as many Christmas gifts as possible secondhand, and to wrap them in things already at home instead of buying paper, ribbons, and tape.
I usually use brown paper bags from the grocery store, cut them open and wrap the Christmas gifts so that the brown inside of the bags is on the outside of the package. Then I skip the tape and use string instead to keep the package together!
This year I found nice fabric ribbons on Tradera that I use instead of the plastic ribbons often used. Since the paper in grocery bags is coarser and rougher than regular wrapping paper, I usually draw, paint, and write directly on the package instead of buying cards!
Another trick is to wrap gifts in nice kitchen towels you have at home or fabric pieces you find at thrift stores instead of paper.
Maria:
Really large pine cones where you paint the outer scales, different colors for different cones, which you then hang in the tree with a string, instead of plastic baubles.
Victoria from rawvegan.se:
My best tip to reduce plastic is to eat more whole foods and make dishes from scratch with whole ingredients that you buy loose. By basing meals on fruits and vegetables, plastic is automatically reduced!
The few times you use plastic bags for food – reuse them, you can actually wash them out too!
By buying in bulk, it’s not only cheaper but also reduces the amount of plastic packaging from my experience!
Therese:
Recycle last year’s Christmas wrapping paper and fold the paper around the gifts in a way that doesn’t require tape or ribbon. If there is ribbon, it’s fabric, also from last year.
Then I don’t buy any plastic toys for the kids, wood and preferably secondhand.
Leftover Christmas food is stored in glass containers or beeswax wraps, buy meat from the deli with only locally sourced meat, packed in paper. Cook and bake everything from scratch 🍞🥧🥦
Thank you and Merry Christmas!
A big thank you to everyone who contributed tips for a plastic-free Christmas! The more we share different methods, the more we can reduce plastic together.
What is your best tip for a plastic-minimized Christmas?
Feel free to share in a comment so we can all become more sustainable 😍
