Everyone we know is looking for ways to make their holidays more environmentally friendly. There are many beautiful ways to wrap your holiday gifts without creating waste. Why not wow your friends and family with uniquely wrapped gifts this holiday season?

Wrap your gifts in fabric

Fabric scraps or flour sack dish towels or cloth napkins make great reusable wrapping. Here’s a tutorial on traditional Japanese furoshiki wrapping techniques for a beautiful looking gift.

Make fabric gift bags. If you’re handy with a sewing machine, you can whip up some gift bags using your fabric stash. 

Reuse paper

This time of year we get lots of packages stuffed with sheets of brown paper. Iron them flat and you have a blank canvas for creative wrapping. Use them as-is and pair with a pretty ribbon (perhaps saved from a gift you received) or get out the rubber stamps and markers and decorate them.

If you carefully unwrapped last year’s gifts and saved the paper or gift bags now is the time to pull it out. Did you know that most commercial wrapping paper is not recyclable? Save what you can to reuse. 

Now that we’re not using plastic shopping bags, you probably have a collection of paper bags in many shapes and sizes. Decorate them up and pop your gifts inside.

Still getting the printed version of your fave newspaper? Instead of putting it in the recycling bin, wrap your gifts in it.

Box it up

If you’re like me, you have a pile of cardboard boxes hanging around that are just too nice to recycle. Find one that’s just the right size. If it’s plain, decorate it. You may want to cut pretty pictures from a magazine to cover any unsightly spots.

Keep it together without plastic tape

Tie with cloth ribbon or twine, made from natural materials. Here’s how to wrap a gift without using tape. 

Try Washi tape, made from rice paper and available in many craft shops.

Add a special touch

Pinecones, sprigs of sturdy fresh herbs like rosemary or lavender, and tiny evergreen branches make delightful and fragrant additions to your wrapping.

Attach small ornaments from your ever-growing collection.

Or play zero-waste Santa. In my family, we pack all our gifts into big tote bags or cloth laundry bags and bring them out one-by-one to present to the recipients. All the ooh-ing and aah-ing without the mess.

---

See Celebrate Sustainably this Holiday Season for more tips for a great, green holiday.

UPDATE

The December 2023 Repair Café was a success! We had 45 guests, who brought 48 items to be repaired. Most of those items left the Café as good as new: 38 were repaired, and several guests left with advice on what to do with an item that couldn’t be repaired or completely repaired.

Here’s the rundown on what guests brought for the coaches to look at:

13 pieces of clothing and textiles
11 lamps
5 small appliances
4 small electronics
2 computer-related items
3 clocks & watches
2 pieces of jewelry
2 pieces of furniture
6 miscellaneous electrical & mechanical items

Sustainable Saratoga and the Saratoga Springs Public Library will co-host our tenth Repair Café on Saturday, December 9th. If you’ve never been to a Repair Café, I invite you to stop by the Harry Dutcher Room in the Library between 1 and 4 pm on Saturday to see what it’s all about. Better yet, bring something broken with you and get it fixed! It’s free, and you don’t need a reservation.

Dutch environmentalist and former journalist Martine Postma came up with the Repair Café concept. She organized the very first Repair Café in Amsterdam on October 18, 2009. Fourteen years later, there are 2,943 Repair Cafés all over the world, including one right here in Saratoga and several more in the surrounding area.

Why Repair?

There are many reasons for repairing your broken things. Protecting our environment is a really powerful incentive. Repairing and reusing reduces what goes into landfills, and reduces demand for new goods made with precious natural resources and/or toxic substances. When you give historical and sentimental items new life, they can go on to serve future generations. Fixing a cherished toy puts a smile back on a child’s face. 

Before fast fashion and planned obsolescence became the norm, repairing was just what people did. They mended torn clothing over and over again and put broken tools back together. Things were made to last and constructed so that they could be repaired. And, fixing broken items saved money, which is not always the case today. The Repair Cafe website says it best: The trouble is, lots of people have forgotten that they can repair things themselves…The Repair Café teaches people to see their possessions in a new light. And, once again, to appreciate their value.

The impact of Repair Cafés

According to the website, Repair Cafés worldwide fix nearly 53,000 items per month, and kept an estimated 420,000 kilos (463 tons) of waste out of landfills in 2019.

Closer to home, guests have brought 532 items to our Saratoga Repair Cafés since June of 2018. Our coaches have a great rate of success, and are able to repair most of the items they are presented with. The most common items guests bring in include lamps, clothing, jewelry, vacuum cleaners, and other small household appliances. But our coaches will give anything a try! If they can’t fix it, possibly because they don’t have a replacement part on hand, or the appropriate tool, they can often advise on where to get a professional repair.

The thing I like best about Repair Cafés is the atmosphere of community and positivity. The coaches really enjoy what they do, and guests get into the spirit as well. When you bring something to repair, we encourage you to watch and even participate in working on the repair, learning about how things work and how we can extend their useful lives. As a textile coach myself, I get a real sense of satisfaction from seeing something go from useless to usable, and from seeing how pleased people are to be able to wear or use their items again. 

PRESS RELEASE – For immediate release (October 27, 2023)

Another successful year for Sustainable Saratoga’s zero waste events

Media Contact: Caroline Rothaug caroline@sustainablesaratoga.org

Saratoga Springs, NY – Sustainable Saratoga held their 7th  annual Saratoga Recycles Day on October 7 and their 2nd annual Paint Collection Day on October 21.

On Saturday, October 7, Sustainable Saratoga hosted the annual Saratoga Recycles Day. Thank you to Stewart’s Shops for making a generous donation to support this year’s event. A total of 241 vehicles attended during the 3 hours of the event to drop off household items for reuse and recycling by one or more of the 8 participating organizations including JGS Recycling, eLot, Saratoga Springs Lions Club, Wellspring, We Are Instrumental, Saratoga Children’s Literacy League, RISE, and American Clothing Company. Volunteers from Youth Squared spent the morning handing out Bite toothpaste tablets to the first 100 cars in attendance to raise awareness about one of the low-waste swaps for household products. Sustainable Saratoga was joined by 19 amazing and dedicated volunteers who helped make this event a success. 

On Saturday, October 21, Sustainable Saratoga and GreenSheen collected 117 cubic yard boxes of paint from local residents and businesses. A total of 853 cars attended the event to drop off paint for recycling, a much more sustainable and environmentally responsible option than sending these products to the landfill where they pollute our soil and groundwater. During the 4 hours of the event, GreenSheen collected 85,586 lbs of latex, acrylic, and water-based coatings and 9,300 lbs of oil-based coatings.

Both of these Sustainable Saratoga events, Saratoga Recycles Day and Paint Collection Day, will continue to be offered annually. 

For more information visit https://sustainablesaratoga.org/projects/zero-waste/. 

Interested in getting involved with Sustainable Saratoga? Email kelsey@sustainablesaratoga.org.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION

Sustainable Saratoga is a not-for-profit organization that promotes sustainable practices and the protection of natural resources, through education, advocacy and action, for the benefit of current and future generations in the Saratoga Springs area.  Since 2008, Sustainable Saratoga has been a leader in promoting awareness of environmental issues and what we as a local community can do to minimize our ecological impact while maintaining a high quality of life.

###

By Kate Phillips

What are refilleries and why are they so great?

According to the EPA, Americans produce an average of 5 pounds of waste per person per day. If you’re looking to reduce your share, try shopping at a Refillery. Refilleries allow you to buy in bulk and and use (and reuse) your own containers. See this article for more information about how refilleries work, and how to effectively shop at them. They are a great sustainable option to reduce your household waste, specifically single use plastics. Our constant need to replace personal care and cleaning products results in tons of plastic bottles ending up in the waste stream every year, polluting our environment and endangering wildlife. Many of these bottles are not recyclable because of the product or soap residue in the container. When you purchase from a refillery, you can reuse the same bottles for your shampoo, conditioner, soap, household cleaners, and similar products over and over again.

Transitioning to zero waste can take a long time, and this is an easy way to start. Whatever your capability, it is great to reduce your waste as much as you can! Shopping at local refilleries also creates a positive community of people who share your value of sustainability.

Local Refilleries

Sustainable Sundry is a refillery in Ballston Spa where you can shop for sustainable goods and gifts, refill your containers with their products currently available in bulk, and attend DIY workshops and events on sustainable and low waste living. It is a great shop for refilling household products like soap, detergent, lotion, toothpaste tablets, and cleaning products. Sustainable Sundry is open Tuesday – Thursday and Saturday from 10am – 3pm.

---

Matt’s Refillery, located in Troy, is a refillery that sells bathroom and cleaning products. They also sell products to live more sustainability at home, such as reusable paper towels. If you’re having a busy day, you can drop off your shopping list and employees will do the refills for you. Matt’s Refillery is open Tuesday – Friday from 10am – 6pm and Saturday 9am – 6pm.

---

Honest Weight is a food co-op in Albany. Unlike many co-ops, Honest Weight does not require a membership – anyone can shop there! The store has a bulk section with food, wellness products, sustainable gifts, and plants from local farms. Honest Weight is open from 8am – 9pm daily.

---

Healthy Living in Wilton is a natural whole foods market also offering community outreach programs and health and nutritional information. There is also a refill station for detergent and cleaning products, and also sell a variety of bulk foods such as nuts, seeds, spices, dried fruit, pasta, and coffee that you refill in your own container. Healthy Living is open from 9am – 9pm daily.

---

The O Zone, located in Red Hook, NY, is a resource center for sustainable lifestyle choice, offering both online and in-store shopping. They provide a variety of goods, services and workshops for local residents to learn about their community options as well as make their own sustainable choices. Use their bulk-refill marketplace, participate in their Community Compost CSA program, sign-up to receive quarterly waste-free packages, and take advantage of their many free recycling endeavors. The O Zone is open Wednesday-Friday 11am – 5pm, Saturday 10am – 6pm, and Sunday 10am – 4pm.

---

Local refillery Conscious Refill, right here in Saratoga Springs, offers refillables from a convenient front-porch location. Are you thinking about getting into the refillery business yourself? Conscious Refill is looking for a partner or buyer to keep this small, sustainable business running. Contact them via their Facebook page to find out more.

---

Check out our Resources and our Zero Waste pages for many more ideas for sustainable living.