Shopping for gifts can be difficult in any situation. However, what if your choices for gift giving were further restrained by the fact they had to be sustainable and eco-conscious in nature? Perhaps, your friends are well-known tree-hugging environmentalists. Maybe you are one yourself. Whatever, the case, you should rest easy. There are plenty of excellent choices for sustainable gifts out there. Below are a few great options.
Table of Contents
Turkish Towels
Everyone loves gifts that have a foreign and exotic flair to them. One gift you should consider giving to more Eco-conscious friends is a Turkish towel. However, try to ensure that it is a legitimate Turkish towel. Real Turkish towels are loomed by hand. The production process is completely handled by a single human being and involves no dangerous chemicals or large-scale industrial processes like most towels you would find at Walmart and elsewhere. Instead, such a towel is a one-of-a-kind handmade product with no carbon footprint to speak of.
Environmental T-Shirts
Perhaps your friend is an actual environmental activist. If that is the case, you may consider giving environmental shirts as a gift. These shirts can include designs with different political and activist slogans regarding the challenges faced by the environment. They can also be produced in a way that puts less impact on the environment than other large-scale apparel companies. If your friends want to pursue environmental activism and announce the fact they care about the world, Eco-themed t-shirts are the perfect gift solution.
Bamboo Coffee Table
Another great choice for a sustainable gift is bamboo furniture. Bamboo is a completely sustainable building material. Unlike wood, bamboo can be rapidly regrown without much effort. It also has the benefit of having the aesthetic allure of the far East. One fun gift you may want to consider is a bamboo coffee table. The bamboo is cut down by hand, and the coffee table will be fastened together by hand as well. No large-scale manufacturing or pollution is involved at any step. It can be a great compliment to any living room.
3D Printer
If you have a larger budget for your gift giving, one extremely high-tech gift you could give to an eco-conscious person is a 3D printer. This may seem counter-intuitive since 3D printers create items for your use out of plastic. This actually couldn’t be further from the truth. According to Forbes, 3D printing removes about 95 percent of the waste from the plastic production process. It’s actually a sustainable way to create plastic toys, utensils, trinkets, and other fun items from plastic for your home and family.
E-Books
The use of paper is a huge drain on the environment. It has led to the clearing of forests. While some effort has been made to make paper production more sustainable, it still hasn’t been enough in many ways. As a result, many important forests that work to provide human beings and other creatures with breathable oxygen are threatened. Despite this, reading is still a vastly important intellectual pursuit. One way to provide people with the books they need to read without as big of a negative impact on trees is through the use of e-books. You can give particular e-books to friends as a gift. You can also give gift cards to e-book distributors so your friends can choose the books they want to read on their own.
Recycled Wool Socks
Unless your name is Adam or Eve and you live in the Garden of Eden, you have to wear clothing today in modern society. Unfortunately, the textile industry is one that is especially harmful to the environment. It takes a lot of energy to manufacture clothing. These industrial processes often require harmful chemicals and produce pollution. Thankfully, there are certain kinds of textiles that can be recycled. This is actually true for wool. While wool may be in theory a sustainable material since it’s grown on the backs of sheep, the production processes for wool clothing are quite the opposite. This is not the case for recycled wool. A pair of recycled wool socks, for example, is a great gift choice that will have a zero carbon footprint.
Shopping for gifts can be hard as it is. When you have to factor in sustainability, it can be even harder. Thankfully, you do have options out there. The list above is only a starting point for all the sustainable products out there that can make great gifts. Just make sure to do your research.