“Melissa Lynn Torre, founder of the Vellum Street Soap Company, with recycled glass jars and bottles she uses to package the skin products she creates and sells. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
Near the food court and beer garden, customers scanned the wooden shelves at Vellum Street Soap Company. Shoppers found candles in salsa jars, bath salts in kombucha bottles, and skin lotion in pickle jars.
Owner Melissa Torre makes her products with tallow, or beef fat, sourced from small local farms to avoid the environmental impacts of shipping. And the glass containers are repurposed to reduce the amount of trash that enters landfills, or elsewhere.
Some local business owners such as Torre are encouraging customers to limit their gift-giving to locally-produced, usable products that don’t impact the environment.
Between shopping, decorating, and eating, people create at least 25% more waste during the holidays, according to Stanford University. Shopping bags, packaging, and wrapping paper also contribute to an additional 1 million tons of trash entering landfills each week.
The heaps of items people receive over the holidays, from clothing to toys, are often made with petroleum byproducts, and shipping the items around the world contributes to fossil fuel emissions. People eventually discard all this “stuff,” which makes its way to landfills.
Some local businesses say customers are becoming more interested in shopping with the environment in mind, however. Surveys find people around the world have become more conscious about environmental sustainability since the pandemic.
“We have to take a step back and look at what we’re buying and how we’re buying,” said Tara Martinak, who owns ReUp Fashion in Haddon Township, New Jersey. “Tradition and holidays are fun, but it doesn’t need to be an excuse to stop caring about the earth or the environment.”
Martinak finds discarded textiles and clothes, and transforms them into fashion items to reduce the millions of tons of fabric waste that’s sent to landfills, or incinerated, every year — and to save the hundreds of gallons of water required to create a single cotton T-shirt.
Among the clothing items at ReUp Fashion are a blue floral-and-checkered jacket made out of a patchwork quilt, and a retro floral jacket that, in its previous life, was a curtain.
“Sometimes people try to shop at thrift stores, and you like something, but it doesn’t fit right, or it’s a little bit outdated,” Martinak said. “I’m that middleman that takes those things and updates them so they can have a new lifecycle.”
Philadelphia resident Meg Retz is also trying to keep used items out of the trash bin. The mother of three gives her family second-hand items for Christmas and on their birthdays. Retz finds items at consignment stores and from members of “Buy Nothing” — a Facebook group for people looking to find or hand off used items.
Last year, Echols started her own fashion business, Metamorphosis by JB. She hand paints designs — from Eagles logos to Evil Eyes —- on used denim jackets and jeans. Echols said she believes repurposed or handmade gifts are much more meaningful and personal than store-bought items.
“Getting a vintage piece of furniture and giving it a repaint is going to be better quality than going to IKEA or buying off Amazon,” she said. “And it’ll have more meaning, because [you] put some time into it … and then people will appreciate that more.”
In addition to gifting loved ones used items, there are several other steps people can take to reduce their environmental impact over the holidays.
According to the nonprofit Clean Air Partnership, people use about 8,000 tons of wrapping paper — or 50,000 trees — every year. Experts suggest wrapping gifts in reusable cloth or with recyclable materials, such as newspapers.
Shopping locally also can make a difference. Shipping and returning gifts contributes to millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. Winterich of Penn State suggests only buying gifts that will be used and are needed by the receiver.
Torre of Vellum Street Soap Company suggests offering someone an experience, or hand-making a gift.” (Read 2023)
When people visit state parks, they will likely interact with the surrounding residential areas. Based on their recreational activity visitors will need supplies, along with food/snacks. Perhaps there is a way local residents can contribute their unused supplies. Likewise, local residents are producing trash daily, perhaps there is a way to collect and reuse items such as glass jars to be repurposed as containers for supplies visitors might need. With tourism, there’s usually some sort of gift shop involved. Perhaps local residents could contribute their unwanted clothing items or home goods to be repurposed as souvenir items for visitors.
Although visitors need to be mindful of their consumption, these initiatives wouldn’t just be for their sake. By creating methods in which trash can be redirected in local communities beyond choosing whether or not items end up in the trash or recycling, people can create habits that prioritize repurposing, whether it be for themselves or part of a collective action.
Read, Z. (2023, December 22). Reducing wasteful gift-giving: Philly businesses, shoppers find ways to reuse items this holiday season. WHYY; WHYY. https://whyy.org/articles/philadelphia-holiday-gifts-sustainable-waste/
