You want to know what really scares me these days, environment-wise? The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating island of trash anywhere from the size of Texas to double the size of Texas, sitting in the middle of the Northern Pacific ocean. A major problem with this particular trash, is that it is largely made up of plastic.
"Unlike debris which biodegrades...plastic disintegrates into ever smaller pieces while remaining polymers, even down to the molecular level.
"As the plastic [degrades] into smaller and smaller pieces, it concentrates in the upper water column. As it disintegrates, the plastic ultimately becomes small enough to be ingested by aquatic organisms which reside near the ocean's surface. Plastic waste thus enters the food chain through its intense concentration in the neuston [little aquatic organisms]."
Yep, that's right, the food chain. That means it's not just killing sea birds and fish (which is bad enough), but you might be eating it as well. Yuck!
While, of course, there are lots of things you can do to reduce your plastic consumption throughout the year (e.g. skip the plastic bags at the grocery store), the always wonderful Crunchy Domestic Goddess has issued a holiday specific challenge.
Can you have a no-plastic holiday? I'm going to try. That means both looking for alternatives to plastic gift items and buying things with minimal packaging. Some thoughts on how I plan to make this work:
Minimize Gift Giving
For the past few years we've really cut back on traditional gift giving. I've set the line at immediate family only (moms, dads, brothers, sisters, and our one cutie niece), and even there we've made a few mutual agreements to skip the gifts. I enjoy holiday shopping when it's really inspired by the true desire to make someone I love happy, but when you're trying to find something "special" for your cousin's husband whom you haven't seen since last Christmas...eh, it just makes me feel all Scrooge-y.
We still get together with a lot of our extended family and friends over the holidays, but I've found just sharing a meal and everyone's news of the year is great.
Time As Gift
The two people who get the most of my holiday attention are our ten-and-under family members--Cutie Niece and Sweet Sister. But, the thing is, being fairly fortunate girlies, they both get a lot of "stuff" at Christmas already.
So this year, although I haven't firmed up my plans yet as to exactly what, each of them are getting an outing of some sort as at least part of their gift from us--an ice skating trip, a knitting lesson, an afternoon at the paint-your-own pottery place--something that's not stuff.
Shop Local
I had so much fun walking around our local art fair last December, and I was so bummed that I had already done a lot of my Christmas shopping. This year I'm going to hold out, and hopefully pick up some great gifts locally. I'm thinking I can easily avoid packaging that way (as well as shipping!), and support some local artists at the same time.
Wrapping Fun
Although it's not plastic specific, I was sorting through some decorations the other day and found the prettiest piece of green shimmery fabric that used to function as our tree skirt. Combined with this handy guide to furoshiki (Japanese technique of wrapping gifts with cloth), I'm hoping to skip the wrapping paper this year, as well.
Does anyone else have any good ideas for a plastic free holiday? Anyone else want to join in?
