how to be a friend to the planet this holiday season

Nothing spreads holiday cheer like being a friend to the planet...but here’s a not-so-fun-fact: Americans throw away 25% more trash during the Thanksgiving to New Year’s holiday period than any other time of year. This extra waste amounts to 25 million tons of garbage, or about 1 million extra tons per week. We don’t know about you, but this fact doesn’t sit well with us. If you agree, keep reading to learn a few tips from yours truly on how to be more sustainable this holiday season!

This holiday season, we wanted to take extra strides toward sustainability, especially when it came to our packaging. To avoid creating excess waste, we made all our giftset boxes with recycled materials. Not only that, but the boxes are also 100% recyclable, made with water-based ink, and the products inside can be recycled through our partnership with TerraCycle®! (P.S. use our holiday boxes to collect your empties, send to TerraCycle®, and let them do the rest!)

In an effort to make a dent in that 25 million tons of garbage, we wanted to offer some tips and tricks on how to be more sustainable this holiday season. We asked our amika fam and amika community to see what they’re doing-- here were some of the responses:

• “I’m not wrapping my holiday presents with wrapping paper. I’m re-using fun cloth tote bags that I’ve collected from different events to also pay it forward for reusable shopping bags!” - Kelley Martin, Senior Vice President of Marketing

• “I’m cutting out red meat and following a vegetarian diet half the week.” - Carolyn Curry, Product Marketing Manager

• “We’re going to save and reuse containers, including the amika mask jars!” - Hannah Coffman, Senior E-commerce Manager + Sarah Weckerling, E-commerce Manager

• “I shop local!” - Lindsey, Fan Club

• “I use more energy efficient LED lights when decorating!” - Nicole, Fan Club

• “I reuse tissue paper to wrap my glass ornaments.” - Savannah, Fan Club

• “I always keep my holiday bags from previous years and reuse them along with wrapping paper, tissue paper, bubble wrap, and boxes.” - Jessica, Fan Club

How are you staying sustainable this holiday season (and all year round)?