Celebrate Green Valentine: An Eco-friendly Choice for Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. Have you prepared a special gift for your loved one?

Valentine’s Day has become one of the most celebrated moments around the world. The event becomes so popular that a lot of greeting cards are sent and given that day, almost catching up with the world record for greeting cards given at Christmas celebrations.

According to The American Greetings Corporation data, among all the greeting cards being sent for various celebrations every year, 25% are coming from Valentine’s Day greeting cards. Despite greeting cards, chocolate is a common gift sent on Valentine’s Day. Around 36 million heart-shaped chocolates are sold each year on Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s day is one of many beautiful occasions of the world, yet the accumulation of waste produced from the gift given that day is inevitable. Consistent with the high enthusiasm in sending chocolates and various other gifts, let’s imagine how much garbage emerges afterward.

Get to Know Green Valentines

Concerning the number of wastes produced on Valentine’s Day, Green Valentines is currently being introduced as an option for a more eco-friendly Valentine’s Day. The mission is to keep the hype of the celebration high but with a less waste produced afterwards.

So, how do we make these Green Valentines ideas real? Below are several ideas that you can do to celebrate Green Valentine’s Day:

• Send greeting cards that are made of recycled paper
• Choose organic flowers
• Buy your chocolate from eco-friendly store (use your own container!)
• Choose eco-friendly material for the gift wrapping

Instead of spending money for over the counter chocolate, you may try making your own chocolate for your loved ones. Besides saving costs, making your own chocolate can help reduce the production of plastic and paper waste.

Take a look at how to make more the more eco-friendly Valentine’s chocolates:

1. Shop whatever you need at the bulk store or local baking-ingredients shop
   A bulk store refers to a grocery store with the zero-waste concept. It mostly sells eco-friendly and natural products. You can feel free to choose the ingredients needed to make your Valentine’s chocolate here.

   

2. Bring your own shopping container
   To reduce the use of plastic while shopping, make sure you bring your shopping container and bag. If you prefer shopping for the ingredients online, you can ensure that the packaging is environmentally friendly or able to be recycled
3. Decorate your own chocolate
   Create your dream Valentine’s chocolate according to your preferences, both in terms of the taste and the shape. To simplify, you can check out various tutorials on how to decorate Valentine’s chocolate on Youtube.
4. Wrap chocolate in eco-friendly packaging
   As a final step, make sure your homemade Valentine’s chocolate is wrapped in environmentally-friendly packaging. The best option would be something that easily degrades, but you can also choose reusable packaging for an alternative.

What Should I Use to Wrap My Lovely Chocolate?

Wrapping chocolate with disposable plastic seems practical and simple, but it’s not eco-friendly. We have several recommendations below as alternatives to substitute plastic for your Valentine’s chocolate packaging:

1. Jar
   It could be a plastic jar or glass jar, or maybe metal jar. All is good because it’s definitely possible for the receiver to reuse it again. It also gives your Valentine’s chocolate an aesthetic value. Moreover, a jar packaged-chocolate tends to stay fresh longer as long as it’s stay closed and sealed.

   

2. Recycled Box
   You can replace the use of plastics by using a paper-based box or a recycled box material. This type of packaging can assure the shape of your chocolate stays proper. To make it special, feel free to decorate your box with dried leaves.

   

   For the last step, to make your Valentine’s chocolate prettier, you can put it Furoshiki cloth or reusable bag. These options can substitute the use plastic bags.

   Besides showing affection for your loved ones on Valentine’s day, you can also show your love for the environment by implementing Green Valentine. You can do some of the methods above to reduce the production of waste generated on Valentine’s Day. Good luck!

   References:

   https://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/a-green-valentines-day.html

   10 Ways to Reduce Waste and have a Green Valentine’s Day

   https://www.foodtolove.co.nz/inspire-me/eco-friendly-ways-to-wrap-edible-christmas-gifts-34862