healthy living So much stuff!
Recycling toys and reducing holiday waste LEA HANSON
H
aving kids means having stuff. Most of our kids have lots of toys. Too many, even. Preparing for and anticipating the holidays adds stress to any household and the added layer of being buried in new toys—when your child already has so many—can feel overwhelming. Some parents are good about regularly rotating toys and ridding kids’ rooms of toys they’ve outgrown or forgotten, but for many, fall feels like the perfect time for an annual purge. SELLING, TRADING, AND DONATING Unloading toys and clothes in good condition is nice when you can earn a few bucks or trade them for something new (to you). Everyone wins through a good used sell/trade arrangement: you rid yourself of unused and unneeded things and feel compensated for your items while another family can buy it for a much more affordable price and give the item a second (or third) life. Here are options in Northern Colorado: • Once Upon a Child (www.onceupon achildfortcollins.com) • Kid-A-Round (www.kidaroundftc.com)
There are a plethora of thrift and second-hand stores in northern Colorado that are happy to accept your children’s used toys. You may not receive payment for your donation, but it is tax deductible and you’re giving another family access to toys that are new to them. JUST BUY LESS Selling, trading, and donating toys feels good and can free up space in your home. However, the best practice for having less is always simply buying less. For most, gift giving is an essential tradition in the holiday season. As nice as it may sound to forego gifts altogether in an effort to waste less, that’s not a realistic sacrifice for most gift givers. However, it is possible for most gift 16
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givers to purchase fewer store-bought products. Gifts don’t need to be material goods and, in fact, many feel even more appreciated with actions, special notes, exciting outings and experiences, or thoughtful gestures than they do with store-bought, material items. Many families have adopted the four gift approach to holidays and birthdays: one thing the child wants, one the child needs, one thing to wear, and one thing to read. This type of tradition reduces holiday waste from all angles including
additional million tons of waste a week that’s sent to U.S. landfills, according to the EPA. Many are trying more and more to purchase goods that have minimal packaging to reduce their impact on landfills during the holiday season. It can be difficult to assess the sustainability of product packaging; some items may have less packaging but the packaging is less biodegradable while others use more packaging but it’s completely recyclable. In short, don’t just look at the amount of or size of packaging—see
wrapping, packaging, and the feeling to rid the home of “old” toys to make room for new ones. Plus, we’ve all seen children who are presented with numerous gifts lose interest in them after opening only a few; oftentimes just receiving one single exciting new toy is enough excitement for little ones and can also be an even better and more apparent lesson in graciousness and appreciation.
what it’s made of and check if it can be recycled in northern Colorado. Buying products that come in packages is mostly unavoidable, however. But, while it may be difficult to avoid buying packaged items, it’s easy to reuse the items in which we wrap them. Luckily, one doesn’t have to forgo gift-wrapping altogether in order to be more sustainable, just be a little creative. Using newspaper or old maps is an easy go-to that most have heard of already. Paper grocery bags can be painted with holiday drawings and designs and varying sized cloth bags can be used year after year. In the least, do your best to save gift bags, tissue paper, and wrapping paper from gifts you’ve received and reuse it when you’re wrapping your next gift.
ADDITIONAL HOLIDAY WASTE But, in the end, even the most modest families end up creating waste during the holidays. From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, household waste increases by more than 25 percent, and this extra trash — mostly food, product packaging and wrapping paper — adds up to an