Dear Planet Earth at christmas (Warning: might bring your festive spirit down)

[Eenee]

I haven't brought any plastic toys for the kids this year they are all wooden toys oh wait I have one plastic toy a truck for DS that is made of recycled plastic. I prefer to spend more on something that will last. And I'm not a fan of plastic.

I use wrapping paper though, most paper comes from trees from sustainable growth forrests ie. trees that are planted just for harvesting. My dad works at a paper mill so got to keep him in business although they use a lot of recycled paper as well as from trees.

[Phteven]

I get that you want to keep your dad in business but the issues with paper aren't just the trees. There is also the water, bleaching and yes they use for a product that is destined to be used once and thrown out. Although fabric wrappings also use water, dyes and bleach they can be re-used over and over again before being disposed of.

[Eenee]

Hey no need to have a go at me I fully breastfeed have not used one disposable nappy ever as I use cloth and cloth pads. I do my bit and if paper is my only downfall I 100% own that

[Lenny]

Just a bit of cross promotion.

The Gift of Death

People in eastern Congo are massacred to facilitate smart phone upgrades of ever diminishing marginal utility(3). Forests are felled to make “personalised heart-shaped wooden cheese board sets”. Rivers are poisoned to manufacture talking fish. This is pathological consumption: a world-consuming epidemic of collective madness, rendered so normal by advertising and the media that we scarcely notice what has happened to us.

In 2007, the journalist Adam Welz records, 13 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa. This year, so far, 585 have been shot(4). No one is entirely sure why. But one answer is that very rich people in Vietnam are now sprinkling ground rhino horn on their food or snorting it like cocaine to display their wealth. It’s grotesque, but it scarcely differs from what almost everyone in industrialised nations is doing: trashing the living world through pointless consumption.

[~TT40~]

=(...

[*Efjay*]

Oh I'm so on this! When I think about it this sort of thing is the reason behind my lack of festive cheer most years. I hate the waste

[Lenny]

Breakfast cereal and a toothbrush! Awesome ideas! They're going to love it. Especially because those little boxes have great colours and pictures on them.

[ladybirdflies]

Awesome thread!!! I have been doing this since I had kids. My mum is a classic, she buys crap and says even if it only last five minutes at least they had a bit oh fun!! SCREAM.... grrr they get as much joy from a walk, a book or some quality time!! She has actually changed over the years and can see that giving can be more then plastic not so fantastic!!