Reusable gifts are the best gifts not only for your loved ones but also for the entire planet! This might sound overly dramatic, but just imagine how beneficial it would be for the environment if more and more people handed out these types of gifts more often! What’s more, these gifts don’t have to “look” cheap.
Stick around as we go through some eco-friendly gift options that your loved ones would absolutely adore!
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Benefits of Reusable Gifts
We already hinted at some of the advantages of opting for reusable gifts, but they bear some elaboration.
For one, these gifts don’t create any unnecessary waste, and, in fact, they help empty out damaging landfills responsible for soil and air pollution. Also, as the name suggests, the recipient will make use of these gifts repeatedly, so they will not go into the garbage bin anytime soon.
Moreover, while it’s true that some of these ecological offerings can cost a lot of money, you’ll also find various affordable eco-friendly alternatives. The notion that you’ll necessarily have to spend more on reusable gifts is a myth that must be dispelled once and for all.
It goes without saying that repurposing used material for manufacturing is a far more cost-effective solution than extracting virgin material again and again. When you choose items manufactured with recycled components, you help ecologically-conscious businesses thrive while at the same time normalizing sustainable production practices.
How to Choose the Right Reusable Gift
Choosing the right gift can still pose a challenge, especially if you don’t know the recipient’s preferences.
Standard gifts, such as custom reusable coffee cups, can be ideal for most individuals and moments. Nevertheless, sometimes, it’s not enough to hand out a “generic” gift, if anything, because a gift is more than just about the object: It’s about the message you want to convey! If you want to show that special someone that “you care,” you ought to get a bit more creative.
You could find clues about the person’s preferences by asking close friends or browsing their social media accounts. For the record, Pinterest provides a nice feature whereby users “pin” their desired items onto “boards,” so there’s that!
The “occasion” is another vital factor to consider, whether the recipient is celebrating their 1st-week anniversary, birthday, or wedding, even. Luckily, you may find lots of reusable gifts suitable for most of these events.
Ideas for Reusable Gifts
Let’s now go over five sustainable and reusable gifts that should work for most contexts and exceptional circumstances:
1. Custom Reusable Coffee Cups
Sometimes, it’s nice to have a cup that we can take on the go and doesn’t have to end up in the trash on the same day. Did you know you can also buy custom reusable coffee cups that are personalized to your taste?
You can’t go wrong with this one! You can also insert the recipient’s name and choose a font option and color.
2. Washable Towels
Over 254M tons of paper towels go to wastebins each year, and around 19M trees are required to replace them.
Thankfully, these 100% Birds-Eye-Cotton towels are outstanding reusable alternatives for all sorts of tasks – from wringing juice to drying hands and wiping spills.
3. Environmentally-Friendly Toothbrushes
Forget about those ecocidal plastic toothbrushes. Biodegradable bamboo is the way to go; in that sense, the Humble Co. Bamboo Toothbrush doesn’t disappoint.
But Humble Co. is not only concerned about the environment. They’re also fully committed to improving people’s smiles by endowing these toothbrushes with sturdy yet gentle nylon bristles for a thorough cleaning job. Needless to say, these are also reusable!
4. Essential Oil Diffusers
Households would truly relish an elegant, reusable oil diffuser to replace those harmful air freshening sprays prone to releasing VOCs (with all the ensuing health and environmental consequences).
With something like the Breathe Essential Oil Diffuser – made of biodegradable natural oak and equipped with smart, automated features – your acquaintance or loved one will have a frugal yet enjoyable aromatherapy experience, so they don’t have to rely on those damnable disposable fresheners ever again! (saving money in the long run).
5. Reusable Drinking Straws
The plastic employed for the production of disposable straws can remain in the environment for over 200 years. In the meantime, it remains in landfills in the best of cases and, in the worst ones, it clogs water masses and gutters, meanwhile releasing toxic methane into the medium.
These Allinclusivegifts Stainless Steel Set of Drinking Straws are incredibly convenient, but they’re also fancy and, best of all, reusable. Each straw comes in an attractive wooden case and leaves no metal aftertaste.
DIY Reusable Gifts
If your budget is too tight to purchase a reusable gift, you could probably make one yourself, provided you have the materials at arms reach.
These are some examples of easy DIY gifts you can manufacture from the comfort of your own house:
1. Reusable Food Wraps
These are pretty straightforward to make. Here’s what you should do:
- Grind some beeswax (make sure it’s 100% pure) using a cheese grinder on a board.
- Place parchment paper on a baking sheet.
- Over the paper, lay the piece of organic cotton fabric of your choice. It should be decent-looking andcut to an optimal size (8″ x 8″ minimum).
- Sprinkle the fabric with the beeswax and spread it uniformly across its surface.
- On top of that, lay another piece of parchment paper and iron it all the way from the center to the edges
- Peel off the parchment paper and hang the fabric to dry.
2. Homemade Soap
Making soap is not as effortless as crafting food wraps, and you’ll be required to take extra safety measures to elude potentially serious injuries.
For starters, It’s crucial that you wear gloves that reach all the way to the elbow so that the lye solution doesn’t come into contact with your skin. Also, you may want to avail yourself of goggles or, better yet, a visor to protect your face and eyes.
That said, the bulk of the process goes as follows:
- Melt the oil mix (usually consisting of coconut, palm, and castor oil) in a pot.
- Mix lye (sodium hydroxide) with distilled water and let it reach a temperature of 120 or 130o F.
- Add the lye solution, herbal fragrances, and essential oils of your choice (e.g., powdered lavender and lavender oil) to your oil mix.
- Pour the solution into a bowl and let it rest for a few days in a safe spot to allow it to harden.
- Cut the solution into bars and wait another four weeks for the lye to evaporate completely.
How to Wrap Reusable Gifts
Wrapping paper waste is a real environmental issue that could be salvaged if we only use our creativity a bit more.
If you’re accustomed to receiving lots of stuff via ordinary mail, you’re probably already filled with all manner of tissue paper, boxes, ribbons, and other assorted packaging items. A wise person always strives to save these for a rainy day, for they’ll be handy if they ever need to wrap a present.
Even an old newspaper (provided it’s well-preserved) can make for a nice sustainable gift wrap, and you only need the necessary skills to combine it with other fancy ornaments.
Lastly, there’s the increasingly popular Furoshiki, a traditional Japanese wrapping cloth consisting of two- sided square cloth pieces folded by the corners. Apart from the fact that it can be recycled, this kind of wrapping may be considered, in itself, a reusable gift!
Conclusion
Giving thoughtful presents shouldn’t have to be so taxing on the environment. Hopefully, with the tips we’ve provided throughout this article, you can make a good impression on your peers while contributing to the planet’s well-being and, if possible, even your wallet’s.