At our School Christmas party last year, I was distressed by vast quantities of Caprisun cartons and juice cartons that went into bin bags. This year, I was super pleased to see that G, the person who was responsible for the parties was making up fruit squash into 90 plastic disposable tumblers which she was then rewashing after each party and reusing for the next one. Although it would be better to have 90 non-disposable ones (like borrowing them from the Canteen?), it is still an improvement on last year. I helped her when I saw her washing them up and then after the party which I was at, I made sure we washed them and dried them ready for her so she would be willing to do this again. I made sure to tell a teacher for the next party that they needed to wash the cups up. I then made sure the tumblers went into the cupboard to be used again.
At the same party, the children were given a packet of crisps each. My local library collects Crisp packets to send to Terracycle to recycle into something else so I made sure the children at my party flattened their crisp packets for me and put them into a bag. I made sure to ask the teachers at the remaining 3 parties to do the same. I'd already missed 3 parties the previous day but that is still 270 crisp packets that didn't go into Landfill and hopefully made some money for the library.
I have not purchased any wrapping paper. Not least because I have A MILLION gift bags from children at school. I've chosen to wrap my presents in old tissue paper, old wrapping saved from last year (in fact, my Eco-club colleague from school laughed when I handed her her Christmas present because I had used the exact parcel she wrapped my birthday present in and just crossed out our names on the label and wrote them in the other way round and then changed Birthday to Christmas Everything else is wrapped in 'Who gives a crap?' toilet paper external papers which didn't even come from my own toilet rolls!!!! I asked the loo ladies at my Music camp to save them for me when my did their jobs in the loo and came home with about 50 sheets of patterned paper! I then used sticky delivery labels from school which the eco-friendly caretaker at school gave me after saying, "Agrgh, what is the point of them sending this massive stack of sticky labels with addresses." I said, "I can use those for parcels." and have been for the last few months! Yes, my presents may look a bit scruffy and unconventional but frankly, I am not bothered and anyone who is, doesn't deserve a present from me with such a snobby attitude! ;-)
Our headteacher announced that there would be an afternoon tea provided on the last afternoon and so, in that meeting, I reminded people to bring along a container with them to take things home so that nothing would be wasted and lo and behold, people remembered and nothing was wasted! This made me happy! I think everyone who had a container was also happy!
We ran out of glasses so my head asked for some plastic cups so I went and got the aforementioned ones from the party and brought them in. I also made sure to wash them up so they could be used again. Oh, and the crisp packets were all saved too...
My work colleague came into the staff room and grabbed a box of open Shreddies from on top of the cupboard (presumably left by someone a long time ago!) which had a Best Before date of June 2019 because he wanted the box for whatever craft they were doing in class. He was just about to chuck the nearly full bag of Shreddies in the bin and I hastily stopped him and said I'd take them home for the Compost/food waste bin. I did, but actually, I've tried them and they taste good so free Shreddies for me for the holidays!
There were three 12 unopened packs of chocolate fairy cakes left on the table which were going out of date and were going to be chucked out so I grabbed them and took them to church for the carol service yesterday as an option for the mincepie haters!
I already mentioned my 'Secret Santa' gift at school was to buy 20 bamboo, plastic-free toothbrushes to be given out in hampers to school families- nice to include an eco-message.
I must say that one area CBC and I are struggling with is Toothpaste. We've been using glass jars or toothpaste and tooth tabs for the past few months but really aren't so keen on them. I caved and bought a tube of Colgate. I do miss proper toothpaste!
Went to the Refill room and filled our 3 Shower gel bottles- we haven't had to buy shower gel bottles for a year now as The Refill Room celebrated its 1st anniversary last week!
It's a small thing which is outside my control really but this year, whenever I have bought anything second-hand on eBay, I have always sent the seller a message asking them if they can reuse packaging rather than giving me something new and by and large, they have done that, a few saying what a good idea it was to actually ask!
I wanted to share an eco-message for Christmas presents and birthday. I bought my niece a bamboo hot drink cup for her birthday and have bought handbag rolls which contain a fork, spoon, knife, chopsticks, straw and straw cleaner made out of bamboo for a few people. Also bought shampoo bars for people from Lush for Christmas. For my Mum (STOP READING NOW MUM!)
I have sourced several items in the charity shop and filled them with food items that are plastic free. Herbs and spices and dried goods given in washed out jars. Same for my Dad! His chocolate cashews come in an old honey jar!
I'm quite pleased that with CBC's family, we all decided to give no Christmas presents this year but to just share food and joy together. It is quite a relief not to stress about presents and it is better to save resources.
This afternoon (written on 23rd December), I wanted to make some soup so I used the bag of carrots rescued from school which are about 2 months past their best before date. Of course, when peeled, these are perfectly good carrots, I also added in a lump of courgette that CBC would definitely have thrown away had he seen it plus using the small lump of Chorizo from CBC's party Paella and the plastic-free sundried tomatoes from Italy plus Tumeric, Paprika, lentils and herbs (plus a tin of butterbeans) from my beloved Refill room- proving it is stupid to live by Sell by dates and also that you can make things with a little of everything. We now have hearty-soup to eat on the 27th, 28th and some freezer portions.
Have you done anything particularly noteworthy with an eco-message recently?x
xx
Brilliant Kezzie ! Well done for getting colleagues on board x I've made wax wraps for everyone (blog post to follow)
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely idea to share food and joy rather than Xmas presents.
ReplyDeleteAll of this year's gifts were either fair trade, vintage, handmade or sourced from an Indie British company and we wrapped everything in either recycled and hand printed brown paper tied with string or recycled gift bags - I'm taking a polluting long haul flight in a few week's time so it goes slightly towards negating the damage! xxx
You are always filled with such great green and eco-friendly ideas Kezzie. Great to hear that your school colleagues are making an effort, rewashing and reusing things. It is great that there is improvement in terms of being more eco-friendly in your school. We had a dinner organized with teachers (in my new school) but it was hosted without kids, at a rather fancy restaurant, so there wasn't any plastic involved (that's nice, isn't it?). I don't think I've done anything particularly note worthy ecologically. I haven't done any eco harm that I think of, but I haven't done much good either. I did buy some packaged food for Christmas (just some snacks, sweets and stuff like that). I reused my Christmas decor but I always do that (or make my own) so it's not something I think of as especially ecological, it just makes sense to me.
ReplyDeleteLast year I made fabric gift bags using all my godmother's table cloths etc, hand embroidered by herself, or Christmas ones, that she handed over to me. This year I reused brown paper packaging materials and tied the parcels with red and white string.
ReplyDeleteOur local Quaker church have extra recycling bins for toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, and rinsed pouches of pet food... Might be worth seeing if your Quakers are doing something similar?
I'd love to share food and joy instead of gifts. We really struggled to find suitable gifts for A's family this year and ended up giving gifts for the sake of it, which I hate.
ReplyDeleteWith my family we do a secret santa which cuts down the amount we buy, and we actually give each other ideas for gifts, As family like to be surprised, which I can understand but it means lots of unwanted gifts, and unnecessary waste. I could go on about this for hours!
Your efforts as always are remarkable.
I agree on the toothpaste, I'm struggling with mine but I will see what else I can find, in the hope that something mintier reveals itself - I'll tell you if I find anything.
xx
I bought my Mum some washable makeup remover pads and we gifted two jars of homemade raspberry jam [berries from our garden] to relatives yesterday. Most pressies have been either bought second hand or from independent local companies or makers. Arilx
ReplyDeleteI keep on applauding you for your eco-friendly efforts, which absolutely put mine to shame. It's a wonderful achievement to have convinced your colleagues to wash those disposable tumblers and reuse them. Well, it's a start isn't it? I also love your way of reusing old gift bags, wrapping paper, Etc. for your presents. We only have a Secret Santa, so only one present to buy each, and I re-used old wrapping paper for this too. I've also got a charity shopped gift for my friend, who's hosing New Year's Eve. xxx
ReplyDeleteYey for your eco friendly party modifications! Similar to you, we were doing a storytime with hot chocolate at the library and needed cups, we looked at buying disposable ones, or new plastic beakers, but then found loads of retro cups in the back of the kitchen cupboard and decided to risk using them - the children didn't break any of them, so we were pretty happy :) I wonder if our library can be a teracycle drop off point, I think I'll look into that in the new year :)
ReplyDeleteI wrapped my presents in scarves this year, they looked super pretty, but I didn't get any of the scarves given back to reuse so now I have to buy a load more - ahh well an excuse to mooch round the charity shops!
We had loads of wrapping paper left from previous years so I used that but once I run out I will so something more eco-friendly. I like the idea of using scarves or towels that then become an additional gift.
ReplyDeleteYou are on top of it, Kezzie! If we all did as well as you, our planet would be a healthier place. Over here, so many people are discouraged about recycling things, because the news is that our recycling doesn't actually get processed, but just gets dumped back in the land fill because there's nowhere on the planet to sell it too now :( I don't know if that's true. It's a sad situation!
ReplyDeleteYou do such an amazing job and are so inspiring!
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