The holiday season may be the most wonderful time of the year, but it’s also one of the most wasteful and expensive. 125,000 tonnes of plastic wrapping which is used for food alone is discarded over the festive season. A statistic highlighted that consumers in the UK will use 227,000 miles of wrapping paper each year, and over 83km of this will end up in our bins.
The holiday season, for many, has also become a time where many find themselves stressed and anxious about finding the ‘perfect’ gift, or fitting in last minute Christmas shopping. Has consumerism and spending become the new Christmas norm? Members of the Environmental NGO Friends of the Earth recently organised “Zero Waste Christmas”, an event to share ideas and creativity to show that it is possible to create presents without breaking the bank or harming the planet.
The Malta Independent spoke with environmental activist and member of Friends of The Earth, Suzanne Maas, on how we can be more environmentally caring towards our planet this Christmas, and to take the time to reflect on what this festive season truly means for us; spending time and showing gratitude or spending money and panicking?
Giving or making gifts that do not harm the planet
Suzanne explained that The Friends of the Earth’s “Zero Waste Christmas” included a number of craft workshops to create different gifts such as beeswax food wraps, lip balms, body and face scrubs and reusable decorations and ornamental items. “You do not need many skills to learn how to make these items, and it was really lovely seeing individuals help one another to create these crafts.”
In this day and age, more people have become aware of the amount of waste they produce, but during the month of December, all that has been adapted seems to be thrown out of the window; but it’s not as hard as we put it out to be.
“As Friends of the Earth, we suggest many things, and one of them is to generally get over this obsession with objects and buying things. If you want to give a gift, sometimes the best gift is that of time. We give people our time, we make things for them or bake, or go out on an outing… there are so many options which do not include providing a physical and material item.”
She pointed out that if one wishes to give a gift there is, of course, nothing wrong in this either, and today there are many items which can be ethical or environmentally friendly. More and more ethical companies have opted to provide hampers with biodegradable cling film or no cling film at all, to be more environmentally friendly. “Through the workshop, we showed people that you can also take waste products and make a gift out of them! Sometimes making a gift for someone and investing time in that gift is even more precious,” said Suzanne.
A period of reflection on our production and waste
For many, the end of the year brings about a time of reflection of what we have achieved and our ‘resolutions’ for the New Year. This topic was also brought up with Suzanne, who said that during this festive period one should reflect on what Christmas truly means for them.
“Is it about spending time with our loved one or spending our money? We see so many people today stressed and feeling rushed to get in all that last minute shopping, that we see that Christmas has become so consumerist and so focused on products, gifts and food that we should not forget what it truly means, spending time with one another and showing that we care and can be a better person.”
In general, we need to reflect a bit on what Christmas is really about; pending time with family or spending our money? I’m so stressed, I need to rush - Christmas has become so consumerist and so focused on the products, the gift, the food - we should not forget what it really means: spending time with friends and family and showing that we care. And we can do that in a better way. It can offer an opportunity for those who might not have a lot of money to spend.
Our habits and the way we create waste is something which has been engrained in our culture and purchasing more and ultimately wasting more has become the ‘norm’ for Christmas, but that does not mean we cannot change that norm to improve our environment. “Throughout the past few years, we have definitely seen a change in mentality when it comes to waste and the use of single use plastics,” Suzanne explained.
“The discussion has become more mainstream, and we see more and more people bringing their own bottles, reusable straws and coffee cups. I believe that these small achievements will be the necessary steps forward into the much bigger changes we need to see in our society.”
Suzanne pointed out that, whilst such small individual decisions do have an impact on helping our environment, it is important to remember that there are bigger changes which need to be done, on a governmental level.
“As an NGO, we want people to make these small changes in their daily lives, but ultimately such big decisions need to be taken at a higher systemic government level. We need to be more aware of those who are in power of producing such pollution and that civil society stands together to demand for better legislation, better decisions to make society more caring to the environment. In this way, taking care of our environment becomes the norm.”
Time to re-think our mind-set and norm
Whilst discussing about cutting down our waste and production, Suzanne explained that we also need to give ourselves some slack and that it is okay to not be perfect. There will be times we need to purchase items and gifts and one should not beat them up for not following the ‘zero waste’ lifestyle perfectly.
“I think, in the end it’s about taking such decisions and them becoming normal, such as carrying a reusable water bottle, but not beating ourselves up when we have to buy a plastic bottle because we are thirsty and there are no water stations nearby.”
She said that people need to re-think about what we truly need and when it is necessary to say no to certain items. “I have been to a number of conferences in the past few years, and they always provide you with a tote bag or a reusable water bottle, which is great, but now I have over 20 tote bags!,” Suzanne said.
She said that there came a time when she simply said no to things because she did not need them, regardless of them being free items. “Sometimes we need to remember that although these items are reusable, to produce them also meant using up resources and energy, so if we will just leave them lying around, we will not be using them properly.”
She said that this is a difficult mentality to develop and takes a lot of rethinking of one’s mind-set to realise why we should think this way about our products and waste. “It takes a lot to change our mind-set, and it is hard to deny something which is given to us for free. It took me many years till I got to the point where I said I do not need this free bag. We accept things without even considering whether we need it or not,” she said.
Changing the norm for spending less money and more time together on Christmas will in itself take time, but one needs to ask, what makes it the most wonderful time of the year?
“It is simply the gifts? Are people even enjoying themselves? Or are we simply wishing each other merry Christmas and giving gifts?”
Christmas is the time to reflect, care for one another and to celebrate, and all of these things can be done in a more sustainable and environmentally-friendly manner by thinking about the bigger picture and spending less time stressing about last-minute shopping.
2019-12-24 06:42:00Z
https://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2019-12-24/local-news/Why-zero-waste-lifestyle-is-about-reflecting-on-choices-6736217773
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Why zero waste lifestyle is about reflecting on choices - Malta Independent Online"
Post a Comment