The holiday season has arrived, and with it comes a flourish of shopping for our loved ones. With so many options available at our fingertips, many of us find ourselves faced with ethical and economic dilemmas in regards to how we are going to spend our consumer dollars. 

Living a sustainable lifestyle does not have to be drab, hurt your wallet, or harm our animal friends. In fact, many of the ways that we can live a plant-based lifestyle extend beyond what we put on our plates. One of the biggest ways that we can remain environmentally and animal-friendly during these winter months is by knowing that most store-bought wrapping papers, ribbons, and foils are not, and I emphasize, NOT recyclable.

Discarded wrapping paper leaves a sea of shiny paper in our oceans and tumbling tissue paper in our backyards. To help avoid adding our waste to growing landfills (waste that ends up invading the habitats of our furry, scaled, and feathered friends and negatively affecting their health), we put together a list of alternative ways to wrap your gifts that are cruelty-free and help us protect the animals and our earth.

DO TRY:

1. Use reusable bags!

Not only are usable bags a gift in themselves, but they’re also extremely practical because they can be repurposed for other uses. The recipient of your gift will be able to tote around theirs with pride knowing that they are living sustainably. Heck, treat yourself at the same time and get one with a cute animal on it!

2. Use leftover paper from the Sunday comics

Your friends and family will get to see just how serious you are about cruelty-free living when they see The Peanuts covering their gifts. You get to laugh because you get to keep the green paper in your pocket instead of on their presents. They get to laugh because you are literally giving them a humorous gift.

3. Use pillowcases and sheets

Is using a pillowcase as wrapping paper glamorous? No. But everyone will be so impressed by your ingenuity and creativity that they won’t think twice about how it looks.

4. Use those boxes you get from shipping

Cardboard boxes just get thrown in the recycling anyway, why not customize the box for the person you are giving the gift to? Paint, stamp, and draw to your heart’s delight! The possibilities are endless.

5. Use old fabric or clothes

Similar to using a sheet or pillowcase. However, if you are super crafty and know how to work some scissors, a needle, and thread you can stitch together some cute DIY coverings.

6. Brown bag it!

Julie Andrews was onto something when she sang about “brown paper packages tied up with string,” and so can you! There’s something nostalgic about simple wrapping paper––try cutting up a leftover paper bag or using a roll of plain craft paper to decorate your gift.

7. Plain wrapping paper

If it’s free of metallic designs and glitter, it’s likely recyclable! Make sure to double check the…erm, wrapping 🙂

AVOID: 

1. Animal-based products for your wrappings.

Animal-based wrappings including beeswax, fur, and leather aren’t cruelty-free.

2. Bows, glitter, and ribbon.

While many add a beautiful and sparkly flair to a gift, these are not recyclable! Many bows that are plastic-paper composite are not the right composition to make cardboard, which makes them a direct-to-trash item unless you decide to reuse the bow again and again. Tricky!

Shannon Kimball has been the Program Coordinator of Bridges of Respect since 2005. He became involved with CAA around the time he met Freeman Wicklund, former Program Coordinator of Bridges of Respect, when Freeman came into his store to print and laminate some posters for the program in 1998. Shannon became involved with CAA’s outreach and the Bridges Program gradually, before becoming a Humane Educator in 2003.

“Once I took over as coordinator [in 2005], I could see that I needed to learn all of the presentations and I started to develop a few that we didn’t have,” said Shannon of the transition, which included a focus on growing the program further and reworking some existing presentations. Their focus was on narrowing the presentations down to a strong core of topics that would be sustained by a growing team of volunteers.

Bridges of Respect provides free humane education presentations to schools and community groups of all ages in the Twin Cities metro area. The current Humane Education Team includes Christine Coughlin, Kathy Coughlin, Freeman Wicklund, and Shannon Kimball. The team brought 38 presentations to over 1100 students in 2018, presenting six out of their seven presentation topics. Circle of Compassion, Our Food Our World, Beyond Violence, and Animals in Entertainment were the most popular presentations in 2018.

Thinking Critically

The presentations encourage students to critically think about the use of animals in our society and honoring humanity’s values of compassion, responsibility, mercy, and empathy. Shannon has presented to students from middle school to college and tailors each presentation to the group’s age, curriculum, and amount of time available for the presentation.

“I want to leave people with a sense of urgency without destroying their outlook on the whole world,” said Shannon with a little laugh. “I get kinda tired sometimes of being the bearer of bad news. I can see the looks in some kids faces––no matter what age group I’m with––when they start to get a grasp on the realities of how bad it is out there and that we really do need their help.”

Each presentation Shannon gives ends with a brief overview of plant-based nutrition along with ways to eat more plant-based if the students are interested in giving it a try. This information is typically something students will not receive in class, and if they do, it’s usually a very brief overview. After each presentation, Shannon shares additional resources with students. “We want to be accessible for students who may have further questions and we want to be approachable.”

Shannon makes sure that each presentation ends on a positive note, reminding students that their decisions can make a difference. “I want to make sure that students are empowered and leave happy.”

“We always come back to ethics and compassion as our main message, but we also include health and environmental issues.” Shannon has presented for several health classes and shifts the message to more of a dietary focus. While he’s comfortable answering many of the standard vegan questions like, “Where do you get your protein?” he looks at being asked new questions as an opportunity to learn more and makes sure to have a number of additional resources discussing topics like maintaining a plant-based diet while gluten-free, soy-free, or diabetic. “The best resource I can recommend for these questions is veganhealth.org––there are a number of physicians that are in a better position to answer these questions than I am.”

A Tasty Message

The end of each presentation also includes another favorite: samples of vegan meats, cheeses, and milk. In 2018, Bridges gave shared over one thousand food samples, reaching 570 students. Food samples really help show how easy (and how delicious!) plant-based eating can be.

One of the questions he frequently gets in classes is ‘What about conscientious omnivorey? If we’re nice to animals, isn’t that good enough?’ To which Shannon answers, “Any action is commendable if we’re trying to reduce suffering for animals but it’s more of a milestone than an endpoint. The vegan community has built more infrastructure than conscientious omnivores. What I mean is that if I hop on a plane and ask for a vegetarian or vegan meal, chances are they’ll know what I mean whereas if I said I was a conscientious omnivore they wouldn’t know what I was talking about and that’s because groups like Compassionate Action for Animals have been there building structure and community that makes it easier for people to move in the plant-based direction.”

You can also support CAA’s outreach and longevity by making a donation to our year-end campaign.

Dr. Milton Mills is coming to the Twin Cities to speak at the Cut the Cheese event at French Meadow on December 6. Learn more about his extensive career in plant-based nutrition, dairy-free advocacy, and more here!

A Medical Career

Dr. Milton Mills is a graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine.

Milton transitioned to a plant-based diet when he was a teenager and noticed physical benefits almost immediately.

He is the Associate Director of Preventive Medicine with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM).

Throughout his career, he has published several research journal articles dealing with racial bias in federal nutrition policy and co-authored PCRM’s report on Racial and Ethnic Bias in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.

He serves as the Race & Nutrition Specialist and Board Adviser for A Well-Fed World.

He trained as an internal medicine physician and now works as an intensive care unit doctor in Washington D.C. and Fairfax Hospital in Virginia.

An Advocate for Plant-Based Eating

Dr. Milton Mills was interviewed by Marla Rose, Vegan Feminist Agitator.

He was featured on What the Health, a documentary from Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn, the same directors of Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret.

Today he shares his perspective on the effects of eating animal products as well as a variety of other topics including what the Bible says about Veganism, Are Humans Designed to Eat Meat? and more.

He was interviewed by Responsible Eating and Living about Rethinking Food.

He’ll be appearing at the 2019 Plant-based Prevention Of Disease Annual National Conference.

Meet Dr. Mills in Person

Milton Mills, MD is a prolific and passionate influencer and advocate for plant-based eating for athletes and non-athletes alike and we’re so excited to have him visit the Twin Cities this December! Learn more about him on Switch4Good’s website and be sure to mark your calendars for the Cut the Cheese event on December 6 at French Meadow!