Earth friendly holiday with sustainable packagaing

Ideas for an Earth-friendly Holiday

Ideas for an earth-friendly holiday.

The holidays will soon be here again. With them come a flurry of planning, shopping, and cooking. Many of us will be mailing holiday packages to loved ones in other parts of the country.

Fortunately, there are many packaging options today that allow us to use recycled and recyclable materials to minimize our impact on the environment. Here are a few ideas for packing your holiday gifts.

1) Recycled shred – it’s easy to make your own packing material using used paper products that you have around the house. From newspapers to articles to old letters, just run them through an inexpensive shredder that you can get at most office supply stores. For a little fun, you can use different colored construction paper or used gift wrap. You can also use plain brown paper to pack gifts without shredding it.

2) Compostable packing peanuts – Many companies today are using a more sustainable alternative to the usual polystyrene packing peanuts, which utilize petroleum. Packing peanuts that are made from cornstarch are a more earth-friendly alternative. They break down in water and leave no residue. Companies like Uline sell them; or you can save the peanuts from orders that are shipped to you.

3) Air pillows – These air-filled plastic sacks are becoming more common. They are lighter than traditional packaging materials and they can be deflated and taken to local stores for recycling. For recycling drop-off locations, you can visit www.plasticfilmrecycling.org.

4) Kraft paper tape – a nice alternative to plastic tape, it comes pre-glued.

5) Tree-free wrapping paper – In an effort to save trees, we can find beautiful alternatives for wrapping gifts. Lokta paper (made in Nepal) and papers made of stone and even elephant dung are available. These papers are often sturdier than traditional wrapping paper and can be re-used.

This holiday season, why not make a statement for environmental sustainability while getting your gift packages together?

There's nothing like a good cup of coffee

Coffee, coffee everywhere!

Coffee, coffee everywhere!

Ah, the aroma of coffee! If you’re like me, you love the wonderful aroma of fresh coffee beans when ground and made into coffee. It greets me in the morning, as my husband always has a pot of hot coffee ready in the kitchen. Many studies have linked moderate consumption of coffee with health benefits, which you can read about in this article on the health benefits of coffee but the skin can benefit, as well. Did you know that coffee is not just for drinking? The caffeine found in coffee has a skin-tightening effect, and the phenolic compounds provide antioxidants to fight free radicals.

Many beauty companies have jumped on the coffee bandwagon; however, coffee has been used for health and wellness for some time. The jury may still be out on whether or not it combats cellulite and other ailments, but there’s no denying coffee’s appeal. High-quality organic and fair trade shade-grown arabica beans are available, and many women recycle used coffee grounds into scrubs and masks. At WEBA Natural Products, we’ve created a moisturizing cocoa butter-enriched bar soap made to help improve circulation and fight free radicals, while imparting the wonderful just-brewed aroma that we’ve come to love.

Why not treat a fellow coffee lover to the wonderful aroma of coffee with a gift bar made with organic, brewed coffee, coffee, cinnamon, and clove oils, and our signature combination of organic oils and butters? The pure essential oils in our coffee bar soap also provide natural antiseptic properties. If you’re looking for a “wake up call”, then give a coffee bar a try. There are few things more rejuvenating than the scent of coffee in the bath.

You can find our coffee bar soap, as well as our other bar soaps, by clicking on our “Revive” coffee bar soap product page