Eco gift giving
It’s impossible to turn on the news or open a newspaper without being bombarded with headlines and articles screaming about how much danger we’re doing to the environment. It can seem like it’s impossible to do anything without it destroying a bit of the rainforest, or melting a polar ice-cap, or helping kill off an endangered species.
This problem is seemingly only exacerbated when it comes to buying gifts for someone. That nice box of chocolates? Flown over from Brazil, lots of damage done by plane fumes. Some smellies? Plastic packaging and lots of tissue paper, more waste and pollution.
However, there are solutions. Companies have seemingly cottoned on to the need for eco-friendly gifts, so here is our pick of the best.
1) If you’re stuck for a gift idea ‘smellies’ in the form of bubble bath, shower gel, face masks or perfume provides an excellent solution- they’re a little bit of luxury in anyone’s life, they’re normally good value and they’re easy enough to obtain. There are several ranges on the market which claim to be ‘eco-friendly’, one of the best are the ‘Bath Bag’ range found on websites like ‘Nigel’s Eco-Store’. This bath bags are basically tea-bags filled with a range of yummy herbs, petals, essential oils and herbs; they’re environmental credentials are filled by the fact they’re bio-degradable, can be re-used and are made of 100% natural products.
2) If you need something a bit bigger the company Interflora has an excellent range of hampers on its website, which make fantastic presents. The contents of these hampers are pretty much whatever you want- chocolates, whisky, wine, champagne, fruit or vegetables. The hampers are also eco-friendly because of Interflora’s carbon neutral commitments- the company aims to become carbon neutral by cutting down on travel, energy-use and waste. They also claim that any unavoidable carbon emissions will be off-set by their donating to carbon reduction projects.
3) A fast growing market is the one for eco-friendly and organic clothes. There are lots of different options out there for clothes, from internet websites like green-uk.co.uk to the environmentally-friendly sections in high-street shops like M&S, Topshop and even Primark.
