Lower Waste Gifting - 2022 Edition
Post Summary: My 2022 personal gift guide featuring low waste goods and/or products from independent makers. (Note: None of the items on this list are sponsored, though I have worked with some of these products or brands in the past. This is my own roundup. )
The following is what we gift or recommend to our close family and friends throughout the year. Several of these items overlap with gifting lists / posts from previous years, because the point isn’t finding the best “new” thing— it’s finding goods that serve a practical purpose with unique style while bringing joy.
Railroad Lantern
The rechargable lantern from Barebones that we’ve been using nightly at the Cottage. It’s easy to carry, suspend, or display on small surfaces.
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Stabilo Woody 3-in-1 Duo Pencils
These multi-tasking pencils with 2-color points can be used in a multitude of ways, including on glass.
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Creative Style by Lizzie McGraw
If you’re on this site, you’ll love the interior design work of Lizzie McGraw. Every piece of multi-tasking furniture I’ve ever designed has been designed with Lizzie, and built by her and her team with reclaimed materials and lots of love. Lizzie turns overlooked items into treasures on a daily basis, and her long-standing shop on Abbot Kinney in Venice is one of my favorite places on the planet, as it shares her vibrant heartbeat. This book is full of inspiration and joy, just like its author.
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Reusable Ear Swabs
LastSwab replaces up to 1000 single-use cotton swabs. Their standard swab and their makeup swab both have a soft-feel tip and are easy to clean.
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Herbs for Home & Healing in the Anthropocene
Our bodies and this planet are our true homes, so we need to listen to and care for them. I have personally come to regularly rely on these Earth Star Herbals by Alyson Morgan.
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Me: A Compendium (Kid’s Journal)
This delightful, fill-in journal is one of West’s recent favorites. (For reference, he’s 6 years old.) It’s funny and playful, and a great outlet for kids who enjoy reading, writing, drawing, and thinking creatively.
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Water Carbonator
Our Aarke water carbonator is not only stylish, but it helps us save between 4-6 bottles from the recycling bin daily. We have the Carbonator Pro in Sand, because it uses glass bottles rather than plastic. But the traditional Aarke is fantastic too, and offers a tiny countertop footprint for space-savvy styling.
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Children’s Audio App Subscription
This app / audio subscription service has a diverse selection of programming for kids of all ages. (West and Léa particularly love Sarah & Duck, and also enjoy Alphabet Adventures.)
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Caraway Cook + Bakeware + Food Storage
I got Adam a set of Caraway’s non-toxic, colorful pots / pans for the new cottage, and we both appreciate them so much that we invested in their bakeware and food storage, too.
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All of Us Skin Tone Crayons
Handcrafted in the USA without any paraffin or fillers, these crayons are crafted with beeswax, carnauba wax and earth pigments.
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The Naked Stone
These low waste moisturizing stones are for the whole body, and are a made-from-scratch revolution against plastics, pumps, and chemicals, and come in a refillable bamboo canister.
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Portable Projector
We don’t have a TV or large monitor in our home, but we can watch movies anywhere thanks to our little projector.
Planetbox
This stainless steel lunchbox (which comes in a few sizes/styles) is one of the most-used items in our home, and eliminates the need for baggies and multiple containers for meals on-the-go.
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Safety Razor
We can prevent millions of plastic, disposable razors and razor heads from entering landfills and oceans with safety razors. Oui the People makes beautiful safety razors to last a lifetime, and also sells blade refills.
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Refurbished Ratio Coffee Maker
Ratio makes the most beautiful coffee makers— especially when paired with their glass carafes. The smaller model is particularly great for small spaces. We have the Ratio8 in a refurbished model.
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Steamline Luggage
These suitcases, which have been favorites of mine for years, are so stylish that they can be reused for a myriad of purposes and for storage around the home. This is particularly helpful in small spaces, where there’s often no place to store a suitcase. If you can’t store it, why not display and use it daily?
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Collapsible Water Bottle
Reusable bottles have never been easier to tote! These collapsible, pocket-sized Stojo bottles even loop over a bike/stroller handlebar or around a backpack with ease.
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Homemade Grape Jam & Bread
Nothing beats homemade food. No clutter. No waste. No costly spending. And a gift from the heart and hands.
Rechargeable Lighter
There are more than 300 uses per charge in this stylish lighter, and it’s rechargeable, eliminating the need for refills or disposables. Plus it has a safety mechanism for homes with little ones.
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Vintner's Daughter
This company’s skincare philosophy centers on offering multi-correctional performance and the belief that if one product delivers a myriad of benefits, fewer products are needed, fewer are produced, and less natural resources are utilized. Even better, the ingredients are sourced from responsible producers, many of which have used the same sustainable, organic farming practices for generations. It’s not cheap, but for the quality and all the products it replaces, Active Botanical Serum is totally worth it, in my opinion. (This company is also a donor to The RightWay Foundation.)
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Play Silks
Sarah’s Silks is a family owned company specializing in Waldorf inspired sustainable toys for children. Their silks are simple and versatile, and dyed with non-toxic, eco-friendly dyes.
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Braiding Sweetgrass
Everyone could do with putting down the phone and picking up a book. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer shows that, “the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.”
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Handmade Wooden Incense Burners
I purchased one of these little gems for the new Cottage and the entire family is enamored with her.
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OddBird Robes + Towels
Sustainably robes made in small-batches, using 100% natural fibers and woven by artisans on century-old semi-automatic looms.
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Late Sunday Afternoon Ascots
These responsibly-made ascots can be worn in a myriad of ways— around your neck, on your wrist, in your hair, on your bag/pack/basket, and around the brim of your hat. Our friends at Late Sunday Afternoon use locally sourced deadstock fabrics to create their ascots in-house. Any scraps are used to stuff handmade dog beds that they then donate to animal shelters.
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