It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Mulled wine, the smell of pine, twinkling lights and carols.
Though Christmas might still be over a month away, we are already a little bit excited. However, the festive season means waste. An estimated 227,000 miles of wrapping paper gets thrown away each year along with 300,000 tonnes of card packaging. And lots of wrapping paper is actually plastic (you can tell by scrunching it up. If it unscrunches it’s plastic). Oh no!!!! The good news though, is that Christmas doesn’t have to be an environmental nightmare. You can use old newspaper or magazines to wrap your gifts! Or how about decorating brown paper to wrap your presents. And when you are done with it? Make sure every scrap gets recycled.
But what about gifts?
We’ve compiled our 2 Minute Christmas Gift Guide to help you, our eco-warrior family, have a green, clean and merry Christmas this year! See below for our 5 Golden Rules…
- Give What People Need
It may not be glamorous, but sometimes people just need a new tyre. Sometimes our best friends just need a full tank of fuel. Your cousin might need a night off from the kids. Instead of the classic Christmas board games, box of chocolates or stationary sets, why not think about what your loved ones really need? Something as little as a helping hand to paint a new nursery, taking your grandma out for the day or funding uni books for your niece or nephew might take the pressure off, lighten a load or simply put a smile on their face.
If you’re looking to encourage a friend or family member to get outside this winter, you could even purchase them a litter-picker from our Beach Clean Shop! It might not be sparkly, but it will make the world of difference for both our outside spaces and the physical and mental health of the recipient!
CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE 2 MINUTE SHOP
- Buy a Charity Gift
Give and give again. When you buy a gift for someone from a charity, not only does that person receive a present, but the charity gets a kick back too! Our 2 Minute Beach Clean Shop was recently featured in Coast Magazine’s ‘Gifts That Give Back.’ When you buy from our shop, 100% of profits are put back into the charity, meaning not only does the receiver of the gift benefit, but so does our charity. All funds raised go straight to helping keep our beaches, rivers, streets and green spaces free of litter, 2 minutes at a time.
There are also lots of amazing small charities that will need our support after a tough financial year. By supporting these organisations we can help them grow and thrive, and continue giving back.
Another amazing charity to support is Choose Love. Through their online shop you can buy items that’ll be sent directly to refugees in need, such as blankets, firewood, hot food and children’s coats. Shop for yourself or as a gift for a friend, receive nothing, but know that someone in desperate need gains something incredibly useful and gratefully received.
CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE 2 MINUTE SHOP
- Shop Locally
This year it’s more important than ever to love local! Lockdown 2.0 may have forced many high street businesses, independent sellers and locally owned cafes to shut up shop, but many of them are offering click-and-collect, postal orders or vouchers for their products and produce. Did you know that every time you buy from a small business an actual person does a little happy dance? Even though the goods being created from local artisans, makers and creatives make beautiful, thoughtful gifts, the little happy dance is enough of an incentive for us!
Our 2 Minute eBay Shop is still up and running, where you can purchase brand new surf clothes donated from Surfdome. All profits go back into our charity, plus the clothes you’ll see in our shop have been saved from landfill, due to Surfdome’s zero-to-landfill policy.
CLICK HERE TO VISIT OUR EBAY SHOP
If you need to get your Christmas shopping done entirely online this year, you could check out the Ethical Superstore, Plastic Freedom and Wearth London. Each of these online retailers stock eco-friendly and ethical items, perfect for stockings, Christmas presents and little gifts.
- Amazon Smile
If you can’t shop independently and have to use Amazon, help us by using Smile! We are now set-up as a registered charity with Amazon Smile, which means that if you purchase something from their website, you can select an option for Amazon to donate money to The 2 Minute Foundation!
We are, first and foremost, here for the little people. We support independent. We support small. We support local. But, of course, sometimes you need things fast and hassle-free. Help to support our beach-cleaning, litter-picking, street-cleaning mission if you absolutely have to shop on Amazon by choosing us as your Amazon Smile charity!
Another organisation who provides a similar scheme to Amazon Smiles are Give as you Live Online, where you can also choose to give back to your favourite charity when you shop online.
- Green Friday
Everyone’s heard of Black Friday; some of you love it, others hate it, but nonetheless, it rolls around every winter. The Internet Fusion Group, who are made up of Surfdome, Webtogs, Blackleaf and Nightgear, have decided to combat the famous day of over-shopping, under-cutting and panic-buying with a different initiative – Green Friday!
As of the first Friday in November, Surfdome and it’s affiliated companies will be donating 1% of gross profits every Friday, until Black Friday, to partner charities – which we are proudly one of!
Surfdome said, “We’ve been supporting #2MinuteBeachClean almost since its inception and continue to be impressed by the charity’s tenacity and its practical, accessible approach to a seemingly overwhelming problem. The scale of the marine plastic crisis is so vast that it’s hard to know where to start, and easy to do nothing at all. But every piece of plastic in the sea or on the beach matters, and everybody has two minutes to spare. By encouraging people to pick up a few minutes’ worth of litter every time they go to the beach, #2MinuteBeachClean is actively improving the health of our oceans, two minutes at a time, and meanwhile helping bring about an important cultural shift.”
We couldn’t be more grateful to be supported by our friends at Surfdome this Christmas!
Hopefully our 5 golden rules of Christmas gifting have inspired you to give back, as well as give. We are always on the look out for more independent businesses to add to our Christmas wish list, so if you’d like to share your local, plastic-free and eco brands with us, we’d love to hear! Next week we will be launching our very own 2 Minute Christmas Gifts, so make sure you keep your eyes on our blog and socials for more Xmas ideas!
The 2 Minute Foundation blog 