Come October and we all are excited. Because the annual festival season is round the corner and will continue till New year. Definitely a time to celebrate with friends and family. Celebrations take many forms. Delicious food is prepared, annual visits to all near and dear ones are made, and of course gifts are exchanged. Everyone around seems to be in a good mood. In this atmosphere of festivities, we can’t forget our responsibility towards our environment and Mother Earth.
I am talking about my favourite topic of waste. How much waste is generated in the festival season is anybody’s guess. One sees plenty of gift boxes of all kinds, that are bought and passed on without a thought about the amount of packaging that’s being used in these boxes and what happens to it after the gift is opened. This fancy packaging only adds to the amount of garbage that we usually generate on a regular basis.
Let’s see if we can do something about this. Here are some ideas that I am sharing and would love to get more from anyone who is reading this.
Once you have selected the gift, also pay attention to the type of packaging that the gift is going to be wrapped in. See if you can buy the gift without the packaging and do the gift wrapping yourself. That way, you can control the type of packaging material used.
Buy some nice bright colored cloth for your gift wrapping. And use red sacred thread or wool threads for tying the gift. If you have a newspaper in the house, use that for wrapping gifts. Dab some paint on it to make it festive. If you have small children/ grandchildren at home, get them involved in gift wrapping. Put paint on their hands and put their handprints on the newspaper that’s being used for gift wrapping. This will not only teach them something and be fun for them, but will also be very personalized and invaluable wrapping for the person receiving the gift.
If you are giving dry fruits as gifts, get some cloth potlis and put the dry fruits in them rather than the pre-packaged gift boxes, which actually have very little quantity of dry fruit and more wrapping. If you are gifting some other eatables, put them in reusable boxes rather than cheap plastic boxes that are going to be discarded immediately. Steel, glass are some options that can be reused by the person receiving the gift.
Essentially avoid buying and gifting things that can be used only once and this includes the packaging. If we all start paying a little attention to these aspects of gifting, which result in a huge amount of waste generation, we will be doing a great favour to our environment.
I would love to hear from everyone about their efforts in this direction on an ongoing basis.
