Plastic Free Christmas

One of our local collaborators, Plastic-Free Furzedown (PFF), works to motivate and educate people in their community to help eliminate single-use plastic. As Christmas is approaching, PFF invited the Scrapstore to participate in a workshop to inspire residents to strive for a plastic-free Christmas celebration. This fun event took place at Sprout Arts on November 6th.

Equipped with materials from the Scrapstore and plenty of enthusiasm, our fab volunteers Jane and Berit brought lots of inspiring show and tell. Focusing on the wrapping of gifts, decorations, and on plastic-free, they presented an abundance of ideas: handmade cards and envelopes; wrapping of gifts using empty glass jars, cardboard tubes, hand printed paper and brown paper bags, origami boxes, and cloth bags; decorations made from old Christmas cards; plastic-free gift ideas such as bags and aprons made from dish towels, paper mache decorations and bowls made from used envelopes and scrap paper; recycled glass cars as containers for sewing kit, and colouring pencils; and food wraps made from scrap cotton fabric and bees wax.

Participants also had a chance to try their hand at several making activities: large orbs made of used Christmas cards (or for even larger – out of paper plates), staples, and string; baubles made from used Christmas cards, paper fastener split pins, and string; gift tags made of Christmas cards and ribbon; and fabric twine made of scrap cotton fabric. Hopefully they will become just as excited as we are about using waste products, scrap, junk or surplus materials in a creative way, thereby reducing single-use plastic and other waste that would otherwise make its way into incineration, landfill or our oceans and seas.