Saturday, November 03, 2007

Holiday gifts: Aim for Zero Waste and do it the environmentally friendly way

I used to travel. I traveled around Europe and the England when I was a student in Ghent, Belgium. As usual, there the souvenir shops. I remembered buying stuff like Swiss Army knives, cuckoo clocks, Dutch clocks, Scandinavian dolls, trinkets from Rome, etc. as gifts to bring home from my travels.

Then there are the holidays (festivals) like Christmas during which one is expected to buy Christmas gifts for loved ones and for events like gifts exchange. Shopping for gifts is not easy. I hope with the arrival of the golden age of the environmentally friendly Internet, the days of driving around to shopping malls to shop for gifts will soon be over. For the sake of our fragile environment, let us use the cars less and the environmentally friendly Internet more for our shopping.

Today is 3 November, and December 25 (Christmas) will soon be upon us. The That is the same thing as saying that the gift season is going to be with us soon. Going to buy your Christmas gifts the conventional way, that is by driving your car to the shopping mall? I hope not, I hope you will get into the environmentally friendly Internet instead, make comparison, choices and purchase your Christmas presents from one of the online merchants like that one.

Further, I hope you will also aim too for ZERO WASTE by choosing your gifts carefully so that is will be relevant, suitable and likely to be useful for the final recipient and not end up in a corner unused. A very simple is this illustration, choose a Christmas present for your husband or for another man from gifts for him. This SERP (search engine result page was obtained by using the search term "gifts for him" in that site's search box. Or perhaps gifts for her. This list of gifts was obtained by clicking on "Perfume" in the list of " Top 20 Picks for the Holidays" in the site linked to from the first link above.

There, you see, there are lots of ways to do a smart comparison shopping to get good holiday gift ideas and aim for ZERO WASTE.

2 comments:

Helen T said...

I agree with you on every count here! I'd much rather shop online in the comfort of my own home, than risk the Hight Street (and I work for a retailer!).

Your other point about aiming for zero waste is really important. Taking time to think about gifts, and perhaps not therefore shopping at the last minute, is the best way to ensure you are sending something really worthwhile that the recipient is going to really love and enjoy!

Of course, a great alternative is to send something from one of the charities. I got a goat from Oxfam Unwrapped last year. Or, more precisely, someone who needed it got a goat, and I got a fridge magnet and the knowledge that that was one gift that was truly appreciated!

Enviroman said...

Dear Editor,

Thanks for leaving a comment, especially a very relevant one and one which reinforces what I am trying to put across - aiming for ZERO WASTE. Our now fragile Spaceship Earth no longer can afford that. Thanks especially as it is from someone worming for a brick and mortar retailer.

Maybe you should be thinking of getting into this online retailing either on your own or for someone. Maybe you can even try to sell your current employer on that. Maybe if you can convince them, they may even put you as head of that division.

Hopefully you have expertise in that area. If not, do some researching and get people who can help you get it off the ground.

Hey it is a good idea. Keep the brick and mortar retailing outlet and start an online division. Even if initially that division don't bring as much income as one may want (sometimes something needs time to build), it can bring publicity to the retailing outlet.

Peter a.k.a. enviroman
Enviroman Says
(floods in England, polar ice and ice caps at moutain peaks melting, I think more severe and frequent hurricanes in US, rain when it is supposed to be a dry season in my country, someone from Queensland recently contacted me if I noticed the weather changing. I replied when I was young I had to sleep under the blanket, but now I sleep topless. If I remembered, he said it is freezing in tropical Queensland and now he has to sleep under a blanket. Please folks, take good care of our one and only Spaceship Earth which have no lifeboat. It may not affect us severely now, but it has every chance of severely affecting our future generations. Then they will have lots to be "thankful to us)