What Does Sustainability Look Like at the Holidays?

November 6, 2026

Though it may be hard for some of us to believe, we are once again approaching what many consider the most wonderful time of the year. The weather shifts to cozy sweater temperatures, retail stores play familiar holiday songs, and friends and family gather around tables full of food made from Grandma’s recipes. Children are making their lists and checking them twice, most likely on digital platforms rather than with the pen and paper of yesteryear.

Celebrations centered around gift giving abound during the holiday season. We begin wracking our brains for the perfect gifts to bestow upon our significant other, children, Secret Santa recipients, or Aunt Becky and Uncle Tom in Florida. Our pocketbooks begin to feel a lot lighter (man, that’s an old reference, given that most of us no longer have coins weighing down our pockets or pocketbooks), and our living spaces feel a bit more crowded with the influx of packages lying around waiting to be wrapped.

More packages mean more waste. In fact, an EPA statistic commonly cited in regard to holiday waste estimates a 25% increase in U.S. household waste between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. That’s a significant increase, and it does include more than just packaging. More food is purchased for all those festive gatherings, and inevitably, some of it goes to waste.

However, packaging does make up a substantial portion of the U.S. waste stream. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s most recent national data, containers and packaging accounted for 28.1% of municipal solid waste generated in 2018, totaling more than 82 million U.S. tons. That’s why it’s worth thinking of ways we can reduce our individual waste, especially during a time of year when we tend to generate more of it.

We’re not here to rob anyone of the joy of giving and receiving, but we can shift our mindset, even if only slightly, to make choices that help cut back on the waste that accompanies the holidays. And if you’re already panicking at the thought of adding one more thing to that daunting to-do list, we’re confident these few suggestions won’t be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Now this one may feel like a stretch in an age of Black Friday deals, Amazon Prime Day, and Cyber Monday, but we’re throwing it out there anyway: Shop local.

It’s a familiar refrain in small-town advertising and across the social media platforms of small businesses—the call to support your local mom and pop shops. But there’s more at stake than ensuring that small businesses succeed.

Every time you order online, your item may be shipped in something beyond its primary packaging. E-commerce has done a lot to minimize this additional packaging in recent years, but the simple fact is that many products cannot ship in their own containers and still arrive at your doorstep undamaged.

Purchasing that product straight from the shelf can eliminate the need for additional e-commerce packaging to ship it to your home. It is an extra step on your part, and you might have to fight the holiday crowds, but a little extra planning and intentionality to help reduce waste is worth the effort. And again, it’s about shifting that convenience mindset we’ve all grown accustomed to.

Now, when there is no way around it and you have to do some online shopping, set aside the time to recycle those paper-based boxes. It can be after the holidays when things have died down and the calm, quiet days of January settle in. Break those boxes down, pile them up in the garage, and then get them to your recycling center when you can.

You won’t be alone. Americans are making good use of the corrugated recycling stream. The American Forest and Paper Association recently released 2025 data showing a 70%–75% recycling rate for what it refers to as “cardboard”—a consumer-facing term that we in the industry know as corrugated packaging. No matter what they’re called, those shipping containers are largely getting recycled by consumers, and that’s an exciting thing.

A couple more ideas to get those sustainable-holiday wheels churning, and this next one is controversial, especially for the gift-wrap enthusiasts in your house: Instead of buying the latest gift wrap designs, use the wrapping paper left over from last year. Or better yet, make kraft paper your go-to gift wrap and reuse it when you can. If you have small kids, they can decorate it for you, or you can keep the classic look of brown paper without ever worrying about what’s in style this year. If you really need some color, you can always add some ribbon to jazz things up, but that does add to the waste issue unless you reuse it for other purposes once the gifts are unwrapped.

Lastly, while you’re pulling out generational family recipes, why not dust off the heirloom china—or grab the everyday dishes if all the china has broken over the years. Disposable dinnerware that piles up in those landfills too often comes with additional packaging and adds to the holiday budget. When you’re finished eating, have a dance party while you clean the dishes. That’s a memory made that wouldn’t have happened if everyone had just piled their plates in the trash.

The holidays may look different from family to family, and the nostalgic feelings we expressed at the beginning of this article may not be relatable to your traditions—or lack thereof—during the last couple of months of the year. But many of us are recognizing the unnecessary waste that is too often a byproduct of what should be a season of giving thanks and showing love to those we get to share this life with. We can all make small choices that amount to something big if each of us does our part.