BYO
AND SHOP WITHOUT WASTEWelcome!
You’ve found your way to the Sustainability in Style ‘Tis the Season’ section of our ‘Take Action’ collection. This collection of posts and it’s home page are loaded with ideas on how you can take action this holiday season to reduce your negative impact on people and planet.
From reducing your food waste, to shopping for gifts in mindful ways, these tips should help inspire you to live life in Sustainable Style during the festive season (minus the overwhelm).
Some of the resources on this page date back to the beginnings of Sustainability in Style’s online journey as a personal blog. We acknowledge that ‘Christmas’ is commonly used in older posts due to our geographical locations (Australia) recognition of this holiday time. However, the term ‘holiday’ is now used as the season of celebration expands to be inclusive of other cultural and religious beliefs.
You’ve found your way to the action-based section of Sustainability in Style. The place and space that shares previous action adventures conducted in Sustainable Style.
Whatever it is that you value, we invite you to explore, connect, and tread a little lighter on our planet holiday season.
Celebrate this season with big love.
Katie
SHOP WITHOUT WASTE
Christmas shopping is hard work, even if you aren’t actually buying anything. There are car parks to be found, crowded trains to board, and escalators with more people than stairs. There are also the Grinches. The Grinch emerges from the most lovely of people and often comes as a complete surprise.
The Grinch steals your car park, elbows you in the crowds, and takes the last box of Christmas cherries from the supermarket shelf right from under your hands. It can be easy to get mad at the Grinch, but it’s best to remember that they too are a nice person just like you. It’s just that they had allowed themselves to catch a case of the grinch from someone or something else!
You can prevent yourself from catching a case of the grinch by making time for breaks in your Christmas preparations. Sometimes these breaks come with some takeaway food choices (coffee being the popular choice). Being the eco-savvy folks you are, you will likely already know the importance of a BYO waste reduction kit, but consider this a friendly reminder. You might also use these ideas to inspire gifting options for friends who are beginning their Sustainably Stylish journey. Your eco kit can include:
YOUR WASTE REDUCTION KIT MAY INCLUDE
- A reusable water bottle: For keeping hydrated on the go without needing to buy bottled water. Glass is my favourite reusable bottle choice and it’s good to look for additional benefits (like a charity donation) when purchasing your bottle.
- A reusable coffee cup: To avoid contributing to the 1 billion disposable coffee cups added to landfill EACH YEAR here in Australia.
- A knife and fork: Pack some from your kitchen drawer if you don’t have folding or camp varieties.
- A reusable napkin: If you don’t have a designated one you can always use a handkerchief for this. No hanky? Raid grandpa’s stash… he will have a new one hidden in there somewhere. These are useful for cleaning hands and faces and can also be used to dry stainless steel or bamboo straws and knives and forks.
- Spoon and Chopsticks: If you know you are likely to end up somewhere where you will need these, feel free to pack some from the kitchen or request (on your gift wish list) or invest in a cute little set
- Reusable bags: If you are planning to do a big shop and tend to do so regularly, get yourself some serious shopping bags, otherwise a collection of reusable bags that can easily be carried in one another with one hand, or packed into your handbag will do the trick. My bag at the top is from Boomerang Bags.
- A straw and a smoothie cup: A reusable straw is the easiest way to cut your rubbish, and they are a great conversation starter. If you don’t want to carry your own smoothie cup (totally get it, they can be quite awkward), then choose to have a smoothie ‘eat-in’ at a cafe in a glass or mason jar but remember to tell them to hold the straw! Quite often your request for no straw won’t work, so don’t feel too awful if you still get one as many busy cafe staff are operating on autopilot.
- Small bags: These are great for on-the-go grocery shopping or if you have a collection of little goodies (like loose pens or Christmas decorations), that you don’t want to get lost in a big bag. My mesh set (one shown at top) were gifted to me six years ago and are still going strong.
- Folding travel cup: These are ideal when you find yourself somewhere that offers ‘free samples’ of something. It gets a little frustrating when you find yourself at a delicious tea shop with sample teas that can only be sampled with throw-away plastic cups. Ask if you can taste from your stainless steel travel cup instead!
- Containers, plates, or bowls: If you intend on eating from a takeaway place, bring along a similar sized container (or keep the container from your last visit). Depending on their health and safety policy, most places will use your BYO container if you smile nicely. They will may be baffled about this request, but it’s another good conversation starter.
While it might seem that your efforts are a small drop in the ocean of single use items that move through a typical food court on any given day you can feel good about your decision to BYO. The best part is that your decision to bring your own waste reduction goodies will often result in a conversation about single use items. Who knows… that convo might just inspire another person to invest in a stainless steel straw or bring their own coffee cup!
TAKE THE HOLIDAY CHALLENGE
VALUES MOTIVATORS AND ON-THE-GO WASTE REDUCTION
We know (and celebrate) that everyone’s approach to living life in Sustainable Style is a little bit different. While some of us are busy creating a home-made meatless meatloaf others are busy juggling kids, work and trying to online order the groceries for delivery without plastic bags. Our (TOTALLY FREE) Values Motivators Quiz helps you identify what motivates you to live life in Sustainable Style, and our huge collection of free and paid resources can guide you in making Values-based choices for living life in Sustainable Style.
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HOLIDAY GUIDEKISS ECO-OVERWHELM GOODBYE
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