Jingle All the Way to Less Waste: Ulster County Hosts Plastic-Free Holiday Workshops

This holiday season, you can deck the halls without decking the planet. Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County, in partnership with New York Sea Grant, is hosting “Plastic-Free Holidays” workshops that teach families how to swap single-use plastics for fun, reusable DIY decorations.Anna Harrod McGrew, natural resources and environment educator at Cornell Cooperative Extension, said the workshops are part of a fall series raising awareness about microplastics and plastic waste.“So our workshops are part of a larger webinar and workshop series we're trying to do this fall…we started in October with a microplastics webinar and a Halloween costume swap at the Kingston Farmers Market. Moving into Thanksgiving, our two other workshops that we have left are unfelted pumpkins and recycled gift tags,” she said.The idea is simple: you don’t need to buy new every year. “There's things around your house that you can use to decorate. And then there's lots of natural materials, plastic-free materials that you can use or reuse to reduce your plastic,” Harrod McGrew said.At the Thanksgiving workshop, participants make felted wool pumpkins using just a few pieces of wool, a felting needle, and a felting pad. “That could also be saved year after a year and doesn't contribute to our enormous amount of plastic waste going into our waste stream,” she said.In December, DIY gift tags are the focus—made from leftover ribbon, buttons, and card stock. “We'll just have kind of a whole table full of supplies that are all assembled from what might have ended up in people's trash to make those gift tags,” Harrod McGrew said.She encourages simple eco-friendly habits at home, too. “I love wrapping gifts with found materials…brown bags from the grocery store, decorating with dried flowers, dried oranges, fancy ribbons. If everybody focused on one thing—like, I'm not going to purchase wrapping paper this year—that can make a huge impact,” she said.Workshops are free, open to ages 10 and up, and registration is available at ulster.cce.cornell.edu/events.