Lighting to warm the season, not the planet

Choosing the right Christmas lights is one of the easiest ways to prevent waste this holiday season. Traditional incandescent bulbs are enormous energy consumers, which don’t just light up your home, but raise the roof on your Christmas carbon footprint.

A conscious swap: Choose LED lights, the much more energy efficient option that will lower your bills too! To take the sustainability up a notch, be sure to set your lights on a timer, or simply keep them off anytime you’re not around to enjoy them.

Choosing a truly green tree

The choice between a real and artificial Christmas tree is hotly debated. Buying a real tree that was cut down and shipped over a long distance for short-term use is not sustainable. However, neither is a plastic tree. Even if you plan to keep a fake tree for decades, its needles fall, littering your home with microplastics. And, for the health and environmentally conscious, this is definitely something to avoid!

A conscious swap: If possible, choose a real tree from local, sustainable farms and be sure to recycle or compost it properly. Or, better yet, design your own eco-friendly Christmas tree by decorating a large potted plant that will last long after the season ends.

Decorating with art, not plastic

No tree is complete without a set of ornaments. Many opt for plastic ornaments due to their affordability and durability. However, they often still break or chip, producing microplastics and even more unnecessary plastic waste. Tinsel, another festive favorite, is made entirely of metallic plastic that cannot be recycled, yet another source of microplastics.

The conscious swap: Choose sustainable Christmas decorations for your tree made of natural materials like glass, wood, clay, metal, fabric, and pine cones. Or DIY ornaments, and in the process, make keepsakes that last for decades of holidays to come.

Let it snow, sustainably 

Fake snow might make your home feel like a winter wonderland, but not without a high cost to the environment. The white dusting is typically made of plastic flakes, or comes from aerosol sprays filled with toxic chemicals. 

The conscious swap: Decorate your home with organic cotton balls, DIY a recipe based on natural ingredients such as baking soda and water, or simply sprinkle some coarse salt. Or, for truly sustainable holiday decorations, skip the snow and bring the outdoors in using fallen pine cones, branches, or dehydrated oranges.

Wrapping the season up right

Gifts are an essential element of the holiday season for many families, and wrapping them up can be a lot of fun! Packages are often decked out with plastic items such as shiny bags, coated paper, tape, and metallic ribbons. But, when the gifts are opened, so much is simply thrown away.

The conscious swap: Incorporate natural, recycled, or reusable elements into your wrapping. You can use recycled paper, reuse brown paper grocery bags, or upcycle a piece of fabric and tie it all together with twine or a fabric ribbon. Then, doodle a fun design, add a sprig of pine, or top it with a cinnamon stick! Not only is it a fun DIY, but it makes every gift more personal and meaningful.

At Pura Stainless, our mission is to offer your family the options you need to make eco-friendly choices through the holiday season, and all year-round. So, if you’re still on the hunt for the perfect sustainable holiday gifts, look no further than our line of 100% plastic-free water bottles, lunch containers, and baby bottles. Head to our website to shop now, and give the gift of healthy hydration.