With colder weather and holiday celebrations approaching, there are so many ways we can make an effort to be more environmentally conscious. Of course, depending on where you are living you may not be dealing with snow and extreme cold, and depending on your background or religion you may not all celebrate the same holiday, so I’ll try my best to be wide reaching here. 

Let it Snow

The first thing I want to talk about is snow management since I think this is something that often gets overlooked. For anyone who lives in a snowy climate, there are a few hacks to avoid traditional ice melt; but before I get into those, you may be thinking…

What’s the problem with ice melt?

Regardless of brand, all ice melt products contain either sodium chloride, magnesium chloride, or calcium chloride— which are all forms of salt. These salts, when used on pavements and roads gets into the porous surfaces and actively breaks it down, causing damage to infrastructure. Beyond this, they get into nearby soils, grasses, and plants due to the runoff from the melting ice and snow and kills all plant matter. These salts are irritating on human skin, which is why warnings inform users to wash immediately if their skin comes into contact with these compounds.

The same is true for our pets; if your dogs are walking on ice melt it can irritate their paws and cause chemical burns. This substrate is also dangerous for your dogs to ingest, which is quite scary to think about as we walk our dogs in snowy conditions and may not realize their paws are irritated, so we get home and they lick their paws to get all of the salty substance off— therefore ingesting all of the ice melt. As easy as it is to forget how irritating this substance can be for our skin since we don’t come in contact usually, we really need to be aware of the impact it’s having on our animals!

There are many brands out there that advertise themselves as being “environmentally friendly”, “dog safe”, etc. However, at the end of the day, they are not. These formulas are the same as the other ice melts, but instead of laying down salt, you are laying down salt that is coated in a different substance that, if it didn’t melt, would not hurt your dogs paws or kill plant life. However, as the snow and ice melts so does the coating, leaving you with salt on your pavement.

If this salt can cause sickness and injury to your dogs and kill plants, imagine what it’s doing to the ocean. In regions close to the water that receive a lot of snow (like Boston, my home during grad school), runoff is not only going into your lawn and nearby parks but also directly into the ocean! So my best advice on this substance would be, not to use it at all! Fortunately for all of us, there are alternatives! 

(NOTE: if you still insist on using ice melt… make sure to scoop up and throw away residual salts after the ice and snow have melted!!! Do not leave the salt to get into your lawn.)

ice melt alternatives 

The real issue with snow and ice is traction, we need to be able to walk without falling and drive safely, right? So we don’t need ice melt, we just need a substance to provide traction. Some awesome alternatives I’ve used and love are sand and cat liter. In desperate times (like when I use to get my car stuck…) I would even just dig up some dirt and throw it under my tires— anything to get some traction.

You can buy sand and cat liter at most grocery or hardware stores and can put it out on the deck/porch, sidewalks, driveway, street, anywhere where you feel like you could use some traction. These substances work WONDERS and won’t be responsible for chemical burns on your neighbors (or your) dogs, irritated skin, and the death of all plant life in the area. This winter, opt for alternatives to salt ice melts and try using a more environmentally and pet friendly alternative!

Holiday shopping for the sustainable minded consumer

Let’s make this holiday season the most sustainable yet! Remember when you’re doing your holiday shopping there is ALWAYS a more sustainable option, let’s run through some examples.

Sustainable suggestions

Many clothing companies are doing their parts in cleaning up the planet with their sustainable garments. Whether it’s by using plastic water bottles to make luxury shoes, only using organic cotton, or by being a carbon neutral company, there is a movement in the clothing industry that needs our support! I will be posting an entire blog post on sustainable clothing and the issues in the fashion industry since it is such a HUGE topic to cover, but for the sake of the holiday post I’ll keep it simple.

• Supporting companies that are not using animal derived materials such as leather and fur is an amazing start— there are so many faux options nowadays that do not negatively impact animals! With the amount of backlash these items are getting, who really wants to be THAT person rocking fur anyways? Vegan clothing is the way to go, nobody needs to be wearing animals as much as those animals need to be conserved and protected.

• Companies that source their cotton from organic farming practices are reducing the amounts of toxic chemicals and pesticides being put into the earth and onto our bodies, this makes for healthier soil that can continue growing crops. On top of that, organic cotton uses 90% less water than it’s non-organic counterpart— that’s insane! Using less water saves energy and reduces waste, all very important things right now!

• Fair trade clothing companies are so important in maximizing human rights and ensuring people are getting fair wages for their work! Here is a website that has 35 ethical and sustainable clothing brands if you’re looking for something new: https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/fair-trade-clothing

  One of my favorites is Happy Earth Apparel https://www.happyearthapparel.com (50% of profits go toward conservation efforts! I also have a discount code for 15% off your purchase at Happy Earth if you use the code “daniellecarnahan96” at check out). Patagonia, Athleta, United by Blue, and Prana are a few of my absolute favorite brands that only use sustainable practices and have high reaching goals for the future of their brands. A great shoe brand is Rothy’s who makes shoes out of recycled plastic bottles. Regardless of which brands you like, something that is helpful to look for is if a company is a certified B corp! These companies are required to consider their impact, on their workers, customers, environment, and community.

  There are so many apparel brands that utilize sustainable and ethical methods of production, if you guys have any favorite sustainable brands that I missed, comment them below!

• Buy more zero-waste items for your families (and yourself)! No better way to get people to reduce their plastic consumption and waste than to buy them what they need (at least that’s my method and it’s been working pretty well). Reusable cutlery and straws made of glass, bamboo, metal, etc. Reusable cotton pads to remove makeup, reusable razors with extra razor heads, refillable toiletry items to cut back on giant plastic bottles of shampoo, lotion, etc. Reusable water bottles, stashers/reusable ziplock type bags, beeswax wrap to keep food fresh, reusable shopping bags and produce bags! A coffee tumbler to cut back on the amount of Starbucks cups polluting the earth (sorry Starbucks). There are endless options, and such good gift ideas for friends or family that could just be starting their eco friendly journey to give them a bit more of an idea of what to do!

• For the ladies out there, menstrual cups instead of tampons/pads. By switching to a menstrual cup you can cut back on plastic waste and cotton usage. Not to mention chemicals that are used to grow the cotton that women are then putting into their bodies.

• Be conscious of your electronic and jewelry purchases. So many of the metals, earth minerals and stones used are supporting conflict in South America and Africa (among other places). Although it is something that is easy to forget about since many of us cannot relate to it, nobody wants to be responsible for the perpetuation of conflict and unfair/dangerous working conditions. Let’s try to use our electronics until we can no longer and look for ethically sourced jewelry to reduce our impact on the planet.

In our busy world, sometimes we need to pause

As the holidays approach and we get busy and stressed, we need to pause to think about the materials we are using in abundance. Online shopping can be a lifesaver and a real time saver when it’s crunch time, but think about the amount of packaging that is often sent with your online orders. Styrofoam, endless plastic and cardboard, all of which can be avoided by a trip to the store with your reusable shopping bag! Not to say we need to not online shop at all because that’s unrealistic, but when you are considering an online order, think about if you have time to just go pick up in store instead!

Another wasteful holiday essential that is often overlooked is wrapping paper! Since it’s dyed and laminated, it is nearly impossible to recycle— resulting in upwards of 4 million pounds of wrapping paper ending up in land fills post holiday season. A good alternative if you are not too worried about aesthetics is recycled bags/newspaper! For most, aesthetics is important so… sustainable wrapping paper suggestions coming your way! Many alternatives use non-tree materials to cut back on deforestation, and do not use such processing to ensure the ability to recycle or compost.

https://wrappily.com

https://www.treehugger.com/culture/10-eco-friendly-alternatives-to-wrapping-paper.html

https://www.amazon.com/eco-friendly-wrapping-paper/s?k=eco+friendly+wrapping+paper

There are so many ways to make the holiday season more sustainably minded! I hope these tips help you guys as we head into the holidays, and if you have any more tips or suggestions of eco-minded brands you like, leave them in the comments below for everyone!