Through support from Piers Island Association and grant funding from CRD, we were able to put together and film this presentation about how every consumer has the power to #ditchtheplastic 
I was able to buy the products that I'd found and use them as draw prizes for our audience, which was present with masks (only 6 people) or there via Zoom.  I apologize in advance for my Ums, which were many...but I hope you come away with inspiration to try and change the way you buy.  I had to  remind myself today...when buying green relish - choose the glass, not the plastic!  

Thank you for watching, please hunt out these fantastic refill stations in your area and spread the word to "ditch the plastic".  

I am the first to admit that I am a bit of a consumer.  When it comes to my granddaughters...I can get a bit carried away with presents, especially at Christmas.  As the presents were piled by the tree with such care, when thoughts of St. Nicholas arose in the air...I thought - OMG this is way too much! The aftermath of all the wrapping and trimmings and ribbons all to the garbage.  You can separate the plastic and paper and styrofoam, but it is still a mountain of debris to be dealt with.  If the paper has foil or sparkles, not recylable. :(

Not to be Scroogie or anything mean, I thought, why don't we use Christmas sacks to be reused each year.  Just think how much wasted paper we would save!  Talking to a friend, she said they use gift bags now and reuse them each year, saving all the tissue.  Brilliant! 

So a couple of quick searches and here's one company (livingethos.com) that makes cloth bags.  I'm sure there are others or it would be quite easy to do if you had the ability to sew.   While stepping ever so slightly into the sewing sea, we are collecting 100% old cotton shirts for beeswax wrappers, so why not recycle worn clothing into cloth gift bags!  Discarded clothing is one of the biggest rising landfill problems.  We can resolve the problem of fashion and wrapping paper wastes with a single sewn up solution.    Awesome!