Whether you were trampled on Black Friday or an adamant participant in Buy Nothing Day, I know you are all clamoring to know how to make your holiday shopping more environmentally friendly.

Fun fact: Only 1 percent of goods purchased in the United States will be in use six months from when they were bought. All of the energy and resources that go into manufacturing goods and shipping them have an environmental effect.

Raw materials must be mined, grown and processed to produce the gifts we give each other during the holiday season. Once those items are discarded, they will most likely end up in a landfill taking up space.

I am certainly guilty of contributing to the holiday madness. On a recent Christmas Eve, I found myself in Wal-Mart in search of a very specific Barbie doll for my younger cousin. My sister and I had already been to two other stores with no luck and were under strict orders to return home with the doll in hand.

It was mayhem. There were toys strewn everywhere and the shelves were emptied by rabid shoppers. After elbowing other customers out of the way, we found the last doll in the store. The employees had weary looks on their faces pleading for the holidays to be over.

We spent the better part of an hour in the 10 items or less line hoping to make it out alive. My cousin was excited about her present at the time, but I’m sure she no longer plays with it.

We can change this paradigm. Gift-giving is supposed to be about showing people you care about them. We can do that without buying stuff they’re just going to throw away anyway.

Shop locally whenever possible — this reduces fuel burned in shipping. For every dollar spent at a locally owned business, 45 cents stays in the local economy, but with chain stores it is only 14 cents. Check out Syracuse First, an organization devoted to promoting local and independent businesses as a means of developing a thriving economy in Syracuse.

Buy gifts that are purposefully short-lived. Fancy cheese, flowers, beer, wine, preserves or chocolate are all great options. They don’t take up space and will undoubtedly be devoured. My dad received a six-pack of India pale ale and three bars of dark chocolate for his birthday this year — he was a very happy man.

Give gifts that are events rather than things. Take your mother out to breakfast or your younger sibling to a concert. There will be no guessing of sizes or whether they will like it — you can just ask them where they would like to go. Besides cheesy quality family time can be pretty great.

Buy used gifts when feasible. There are certain things that are just better (or at least significantly less expensive) used, especially kitchen items like pots, pans and dishes. You can find really high-quality stuff with minimal wear and tear. You can wash it well beforehand and get over your thrift store heebie-jeebies.

Make something. Your grandma will go all gooey inside if you take the time to put together a scrapbook or slideshow of family photos. Baking cookies is another crowd pleaser. In all likelihood, this will be inexpensive and mean more to the recipient that you put in the effort.

Let’s make the holidays about people instead of buying things. It’ll be more fun.

Leanna Mulvihill is a senior forest engineering major and environmental writing and rhetoric minor. Her column appears every Tuesday. She can be reached at lpmulvi@syr.edu.

 

Published on December 5, 2011 at 12:00 pm