Sarah Robertson-Barnes (00:00.875)
Every year after just a few minutes of chaos, all of that beautiful gift wrapping under the tree turns into a pile of garbage in no time flat. And it makes you realize that wrapping paper is one of those things that we rarely think about in the bigger sustainability picture. But once you notice it, it's impossible to unsee. So let's unwrap that today. Welcome to Sustainable in the Suburbs, a podcast for the eco curious who want to live a greener life and are looking for a place to start.

I'm your host, Sarah Robertson Barnes, a soccer mom with a station wagon and a passion for sustainable living. Each week I'll bring you practical tips and honest conversations to help you waste less, save money, and make small doable shifts that actually fit your real life. Because sustainable living doesn't have to be perfect to matter, and you don't have to do it all to make a difference. Hello, and welcome back to Sustainable in the Suburbs, the podcast where we start where we are.

use what we have and live a little greener, one small shift at a time. My name is Sarah Robertson Barnes and thank you for spending time with me today. Before we get into today's topic, just a quick reminder, if Sustainable in the Suburbs has become a part of your week, following the show wherever you listen and leaving a quick rating or review really does help more people find it. And it's one of the simplest ways to support the podcast. There is also a support the show link down in the show notes.

And I'd love to give a big thank you to Julie for sponsoring the show this month. You can also come say hi on Instagram. I'm over there at Sarah Robertson Barnes. And of course, jump on my email list, especially as we are heading through the holidays. I'm sharing lots of practical ideas to help you save money and cut down on waste and make things feel a little more manageable. And everything I'm going to talk about today is down in the show notes. So make sure you check those out. And if today's episode resonates.

Send me a message. I love hearing from you.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (01:59.522)
So we are now fully on the roller coaster of December and everything is speeding up. The calendar is full. There are 47,000 things on the ever growing to-do list. And by the end of it, we are just left with a mountain of wrapping paper everywhere. Still catches me off guard each year how much holiday wrapping paper still isn't recyclable and how many people don't know that.

If you're anything like me, you are very aware of the sheer volume of garbage on Christmas morning. You can see the pile growing, the crumpled paper, the tape, the tags, but it all happens so quickly and so chaotically that it becomes almost an afterthought. By the time the living room is cleared, the opportunity to be a little more mindful about wrapping has already passed us by for another year.

And that's what got me thinking this week about gift wrapping, not in a Pinteresty way, but in a real life, what do I already have in my house kind of way? Because sustainable gift wrapping isn't about making things look a certain way. It's really just a simple shift toward using materials that last a little longer or that can go back into the circular stream instead of becoming very fancy garbage. And the best part is that this kind of wrapping, brown paper, thrifted fabric,

Little natural bits and bobs has its own charm. There's a warmth and a texture to it that you just can't get from glossy store-bought paper. And over the years, I've noticed that people even open these gifts differently. They slow down, they're careful, they fold the fabric or save the tags, and more often than not, they hand that wrapping right back to me so that it can be used again. There's something really sweet about that. So today, we're going to talk about wrapping in a way that still feels festive.

and thoughtful for however you celebrate this holiday season, but that brings a little more care to the planet and maybe a little more ease to your budget and your stress levels.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (03:59.787)
Something I find myself repeating every December to anyone who will listen is this. Most wrapping paper is not recyclable. And that surprises a lot of people, understandably, because it's literally called paper. So you would assume that that goes in the blue bin. But most of the wrapping paper on the market is not just paper. If it's glossy, it has a plastic coating. If it's foil or metallic, that's plastic. If it has glitter on it, you guessed it, plastic.

And once you add tape and ribbons and bows and tags, it's no longer just paper. It's a whole mishmash of materials and the recycling system just can't separate it. And even the stuff that seems like it should be okay doesn't always get accepted. People put it in the bin thinking that they're doing the right thing or we're just hoping for the best and that's called wish cycling. But the whole load gets contaminated and then it all just gets sent to landfill. So that's not great.

And what makes this so tricky is that the packaging often has the little recycling symbol on it, which seems straightforward, but that symbol doesn't tell you if your municipality can actually take it. Anything that's shiny, glittery, laminated, plastic coated is usually a no, even if the recycling symbol on the label makes it seem fine. One way to test this is called the crinkle test. You might've heard of it. You basically scrunch the wrapping paper into a ball.

And if it stays crumpled, it's mostly paper. If it pops back open, it likely has plastic in it and should go in the garbage. So kind of a helpful little guideline if you already have the paper open. Not great for purchasing it, but honestly, who knows? Because every municipality has totally different rules. So even that isn't a sure thing. So then we look up what our municipality says, and that can somehow be even more confusing. So here's what My Town's Waste app says about gift wrap.

So I open it up and put it in the What Goes Where tool gift wrap. Answer, recycling. But then the explanation says, word for word, and I quote, only items that are 100 % paper are accepted. Ribbons, rope handles, foil-type paper, and glitter are all detrimental to the recycling process. So please put these in the garbage. Best advice is that if you are not sure if it should be recycled, then it probably belongs in the garbage. So which is it?

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (06:25.901)
It's contradictory and confusing and the main takeaway ends up being, when in doubt, throw it out. And honestly, it shouldn't be this hard. So zooming out a little bit, how much wrapping paper are we actually using? Unsurprisingly, it is a massive amount of waste. In Canada alone, wrapping paper, gift bags and other holiday gift wrapping packaging waste amounts to roughly 540,000 tons each year.

So now imagine all that in landfills or incinerators instead of being reused or recycled. And on top of the waste, there's also all the money that we're spending on this very fancy garbage. The gift wrap industry is enormous. And in the U.S. consumers spend an estimated $12.7 billion on gift wrap, tissue, bags, tags, bows, and accessories. Canadians are then

course spending hundreds of millions as well, much of it on items used for a matter of minutes before being torn up and thrown out. So why do we do this? Part of it is pressure, either real or imagined, to make gifts look special, make them look Pinterest ready with the bows and the shiny paper and the ribbons and the matching gift bags, what have you, it all adds up.

There's this quiet expectation and it is cultural that the presentation is part of the gift. And so the wrapping has to look a certain way for the occasion to feel festive or thoughtful. It's also just habit. Many of us grew up with gifts wrapped in a certain way and we've carried that forward. It creates a moment, the anticipation, the surprise, pause before someone opens it. And that is really lovely. But somewhere along the line, the materials themselves,

the classy paper and the glitter and all of that became the way to create the moment. Of course, the tricky part is that those materials are unlikely to be recycled or reused. So this well-intentioned effort to make something feel special ends up generating a whole lot of waste, often without us really thinking about it. So if you're hoping to avoid the giant garbage bag moment this year, let's get into some simple ways to cut down on waste and save a little money with more eco-friendly wrapping options.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (08:43.211)
So where do we start? You know what I'm gonna say, start where you are and use what you have. Most of us already have way more wrapping supplies in our homes than we think we do. We really do. But of course the stores don't want us to believe that. So all the displays are right by the checkout with the cute bows and the tissue paper and the cute patterns, all of that. They're designed to make us panic and grab a few things just in case, even though we probably already have a whole stash sitting at home already.

And then the question of course is like, but wait a second, isn't all of this just going to end up in landfill anyway? Yes, eventually it will. So the most helpful thing we can do with it is simply use what we already have, keep it in circulation, just a little bit longer, give it that one more life before it gets tossed. Now, if you don't want to keep it, if you want to get going on eco-friendly options right away, that's okay too. When my parents downsized a few years ago, I got like huge boxes of wrapping supplies.

tons of stuff. Gift bags, bows, huge bolts of ribbon, tags, paper, you name it, it was all in there. And I knew I wasn't going to use all of it. So I put it all up for free in my local buy nothing group and it was gone within an hour. So this is where your buy nothing group can be a gem. Whether you're looking to rehome things or you just need a few supplies for yourself, it keeps these perfectly good materials in use a little longer.

And honestly, some of these items have incredible longevity. We all have those gift bags that have been making the rounds for 10 years or more. They show up at birthdays and then at holidays and then back again the next year. And they're still totally fine. They still do the job. So keep using them. But something I've noticed, and this is one of my favorite parts, is that when you wrap a gift in a way that is simple and reusable, people interact with it differently. It just changes the whole experience.

They slow down and they notice the little details. They take a moment to appreciate the fabric or that little sprig of cedar or the handmade tag. They ask if they should fold the fabric and give it back. They save the string. And I love that because it tells me that people really do value materials when we present them in a different way. And the side effect of that, and I've noticed this is something really lovely, is that the people around you start to shift too. Not because you've told them, but because they've seen it.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (11:12.564)
and they've held it and they've opened it and they've watched how beautifully it all comes together without the sparkly paper and the plastic bows. And it's almost like that gives them permission to try it themselves. They realize, this is actually really nice. I could do this. And then suddenly they're saving gift bags or asking where you got the fabric or showing up next year with handmade tags of their own. So with that in mind, let's talk about how to make eco-friendly wrapping look and feel special.

without buying anything new and some of my favorite simple techniques and materials that always, always come out beautifully.

plot twist, you can still wrap in paper. When it comes to paper-based wrapping, the simplest options are usually the best, and they're almost always in your house already somehow. If you've got kids in your life, you know that half the fun of gift-giving is the sheer chaos of tearing into the paper. And the good news is that all of that excitement still happens with craft paper or newspaper or coloring pages. They rip beautifully too. And the kids don't really care what the wrapping looks like. They just want to get inside of it.

One of my go-tos is craft paper. So that's the big roll of brown paper. You can still use those old rolls that you might have from like years past when your kids were doing a lot of crafts. You can get big plain rolls of them from the post office. But most of the craft paper I use now is just the packing paper that shows up in online orders at this time of year. Yes, it arrives all crinkled up. I know, but hear me out. Wrinkle it more. Just crumple it up.

move it back out, crumple it again over and over, and it becomes part of the look and almost feels fabric-y. It gives the gift this really lovely textural feel that looks intentional rather than I reused packing paper. And I actually have a picture of what this looks like in the blog post linked down in the show notes if you want to see what I mean. But if the wrinkles really bother you, you can iron it. Truly, you just lay it down on an ironing board and you put a towel or another

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (13:19.743)
protective cloth over top, turn your iron to low, the steam off and you can give quick little press and circular motions, works beautifully, takes the wrinkles out, if that's important to you. Another easy option is paper bags. So in places that have plastic bag bands, we're getting a lot more paper bags now. So we've got them from the grocery store, the liquor store, just kicking around. You can cut them open so they lie flat, turn them inside out if there's printing on the outside and now you have a perfectly good sheet of wrapping paper.

And again, you can do the wrinkle trick or the iron trick here too. And of course you can dress up craft paper any way that you like. If you are artistic, you can draw on it. You can do potato stamps. And if you have rubber stamps, I've collected a bunch over the years, you can just stamp on them. You can rub crayons on the wrinkly paper. Sky's the limit. There's lots of ways to dress up craft paper, but you don't have to because we're going to add some fun little natural embellishments later that do the trick.

There's lots of other fun possibilities as well. You can use newspaper comics, pages from old coloring books, even old maps if you have some tucked away or from the thrift store. They're bright, they're unique, and best of all, they can become part of the gift too. The kids don't really care if their present is wrapped in glossy Santa paper versus a fun comic strip.

for tissue paper, you can use the paper wrapping from plastic free toilet paper. I know this sounds crazy, but some brands like Who Gives a Crap make it into like really fun patterns and it looks great as tissue paper in a bag. And of course you can get just plain brown paper bags as well. The cardboard from toilet paper tubes make great little containers for stocking stuffers or small gifts. So you put your thing inside and then you can punch in the ends. So it forms sort of a...

closed end, suppose. And then you can close those with string and you can roll them in paper, tie the ends with string, what have you. And you can also make your Christmas crackers that way for your table. You can also make really cute bows out of magazine pages or old calendars. I have a tutorial pinned on Pinterest for how to do this since it is not a visual medium. So I will link my whole Sustainable Wrapping Ideas board in the show notes so you can see some visual examples very easily, get some inspiration.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (15:36.169)
So since we're talking about wrapping in paper, we do need to talk about tape. Traditional plastic like Scotch tape can interfere with the recycling system. And of course, if you're composting. So if you're using that tape, just make sure that you take it off before you dispose of the paper. But if you have paper tape, fantastic, use that. Paper tape, usually just have to wet a little bit on the back. So think of like how an envelope works. And if you don't have paper tape and you're just using what you have, try to use a little less tape.

You can also fold the paper neatly and tie it with strings so that you barely need any tape at all. Hemp twine, jute, cotton string, all of that is either paper or plant-based and can be reused or composted afterwards. Most of these paper-based options are recyclable and compost-friendly as long as they're plain and uncoated. So just double-check if you're using any old maps or magazines or calendar sheets. So that's your craft paper, the newsprint, the plain brown paper bags.

They can go straight into the compost if they don't have tape or any coating on them. For me, the best part is that these ideas are simple and they're inexpensive. And honestly, they're probably already in your house. They save you money because wrapping paper, tape, bows, ribbons, tags, none of that is cheap. Especially when we remember that most store-bought wrapping, again, is just very fancy garbage. So before you go out and buy anything new, again,

around your home and you'll be surprised at what you already have and how beautifully it all turns out.

Now let's talk about wrapping with fabric because this is my favorite way to wrap gifts. And again, I know this is not a visual medium. So you're listening to me talk about folding cloth around boxes and bottles and whatnot. But don't worry, there are lots of great tutorials on YouTube if you want to try it. And I will also link a little video of me doing a basic box wrap in the notes. Plus my Pinterest board is full of examples of everything that I'm talking about today, including tons of ideas.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (17:38.506)
for how to wrap in cloth and a whole bunch of really lovely fabric wraps. Wrapping in cloth is called furoshiki, which is very simply a traditional Japanese practice of wrapping items in cloth. It's elegant, it's reusable, it's fast, and it works for pretty much any shape. So I've even wrapped a walking pad in a bed sheet. And if you don't have a big enough piece of fabric, look in your linen closet.

And the beauty of furoshiki is that if you just learn a few basic folds, suddenly every gift looks intentional and beautiful. So over the years, I've collected a stash of thrifted scarves and fabric remnants for this. So when I'm looking for fabric and thrift stores, I try to find patterns that can feel holiday-ish if I want them to, but also work all year for birthdays, Father's Day, teachers' gifts, all of that. So things like gingham, plaids, stripes,

anything that doesn't scream Christmas, but can be holiday. These are the kind of patterns that are so easy to dress up with yarn, ribbon, and little embellishments, which we'll talk about in a minute. And suddenly they look perfectly seasonal. One of my favorite things about this method of wrapping is that it can also be part of the gift. You could wrap it in a bandana. You can wrap a kitchen gift with a tea towel, a scarf, or play silks for kids. It becomes something that the recipient can use later as well. It's not just wrapping.

a little extra something. And in my extended family, this has turned into its own fun tradition. So I have a family member who sews and she made little drawstring bags specifically for wrapping gifts. And so now we send those back and forth in the mail each year with the same fabric making its way around Ontario, wrapping a new gift every time. So it's just delightful. And there's something really grounding about knowing that the materials are being loved and reused again and again.

And then there's that moment that I mentioned earlier, when someone opens a gift wrapped in fabric, they slow down and they fold it and they hand it back to you. The last, do you want this back? Should I keep this? And you don't get that moment with store-bought wrapping paper. It creates this whole different interaction around the gift. And I love that. It's also incredibly kid-friendly. So if you have kids helping you wrap gifts, this is the method. It's tactile, it's quick, it's fun, it's forgiving.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (20:05.235)
There's no tape, there's no cutting. You don't need to be precise. Kids can make something look beautiful in about 30 seconds just by tying a knot. So if you've never tried fabric wrapping or furoshiki before, maybe this is the year. And again, I know I'm not a visual medium, so be sure to check the show notes for examples and links so you can see how truly simple and beautiful this method can be.

So let's shift into one of my favorite low waste and low stress gift ideas, is gifts and jars. Because honestly, who doesn't like food or a free jar? We've even put little jam jars of candy from the bulk store into the kids stockings every year. It's simple, it's cute, it's inexpensive, and then the jar gets reused again and again. And that's the whole spirit behind this category of gifts. They're useful, they're thoughtful, and nothing ends up in the garbage.

You can make all kinds of things in a jar. Baking mixes, hot chocolate blends, soups, teas, infused oils, bath salts, whatever you enjoy giving or whatever you enjoy making. And most of the ingredients for these can be found at your local bulk store or grown in your garden. If you've got herbs or lavender, rosemary or mint kicking around. The thing I love most about giving gifts in jars is that it's the time you put into them that's special. It's just about intention.

And the small trick I've learned over the years is keep the tag general. So instead of labeling it with the recipient's name, just write the instructions, bake at this temperature, add this much water, steep for this long, et cetera. Because if it's not quite their thing, they can re-gift it easily and it still gets used. It's nothing personal, nothing wasted. If you want to try this, I have a free mini recipe booklet on my blog with six gifts in a jar ideas, everything from cookie mixes to bath salts.

And again, that will be in the show notes for you. I love to dress up jars. I know jars aren't really wrapping, but you can gussy up the jars with ribbons around the outside. You can tie cinnamon sticks to them, orange slices, all of that kind of thing. And so even though you can see right through the jar, it still looks fancy. So gifts in a jar are such a lovely way to offer something practical and reusable without adding to the holiday clutter. And once you start, you'll see how easy they are to make on your own.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (22:22.148)
and you won't be able to stop.

Now let's talk about embellishments. These are the fancy bits that make a wrapped gift feel special without buying anything new. This is another reason that I love wrapping in either brown paper or these basic fabric patterns is so that the embellishments really pop. This is honestly where you can have the most fun because these small touches add so much charm without adding any waste. And I have tutorials for most of what I'm going to talk about on my blog.

again, check the show notes. And if you follow me on Instagram, you know that I share reels of these every single year. So you can check those out too. My go-tos are the simplest things from either around my house or my yard. So I love doing little bits of cedar, pine cones, seed pods, and little twigs. They smell incredible. They look beautiful. And they're fully compostable at the end. You don't need much. Just tuck a little green under the twine and suddenly the whole package looks elevated.

Just a quick note on foraging for these natural bits though, stick to what you can gather from your own yard or what you find on the ground. Otherwise, just be sure to ask permission. A little goes a long way and nature provides us with plenty. You can also use things right out of your pantry or from the bulk store. So every year I head to the bulk store and I buy the 12 inch long cinnamon sticks and I get maybe 10 and then they're very easy to cut in half with a bread knife. So use cinnamon sticks.

star anise, even sprigs of herbs like rosemary, and of course, star of the show, the dried orange slice, classic. They are gorgeous. I think they look like stained glass windows when you hang them up in the light. And kids love helping make them too. Everyone loves to get a dried orange slice. Can't stop, won't stop. I always look in the reduced produce section at my grocery store to see if they have any.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (24:17.446)
wonky-looking oranges that aren't going to sell. So I recently just got eight oranges for two dollars and made another batch of orange slices for the year. Salt dough ornaments are also a huge hit. You can make a batch really easily with just flour, salt, and water. You can stamp shapes into them, use cookie cutters, poke a little hole for string, and just let them air dry. They look adorable on a wrapped gift and they can double as an ornament as well.

I have even made bows out of beeswax wraps, really, and they look fantastic. So that one always gets people. I don't know how I figured that out, but I think I did it with little twist ties. So it's very easy to just turn it into a bow and wrap that around your twine. And it smells amazing. If you have a lot of crafty energy this time of year, potato stamps are so much fun.

Just cut a potato in half, carve out a simple shape or use a cookie cutter and then just stamp your brown paper or craft paper. You can do it with paint and you can do it with regular ink pad. It's a great way to make holiday crafts with kids without it feeling like having to do holiday crafts with kids. Do you know what I mean? For string, stick with what you already have. I'm sure you have a ton of ribbon or bows left over. That's fine. You can also use jute twine, just like gardening twine. You can use hemp.

You use raffia or yarn, just anything that's natural or compostable. So I'm a big fan of the jute string on the gifts and jars, but I also have these giant cones of wool, one's green and one's white, that I got at a garage sale years ago, and they're still going strong. It's simple, it all looks lovely, and again, you're using what you already have in your home. And then of course, there are the gift tags.

So I bought a pack of 500 plain brown cardboard tags from the bad place, Amazon, years ago, years ago. And I have a little stamp set of the alphabet. So I just stamp the names on them or I'll stamp the name directly onto the brown paper. Sometimes I'll add other stamps or doodles or just leave them plain. And something really interesting started happening with those a few years ago where they started being returned to me as well.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (26:32.355)
even with the yarn they were tied on with. So now I have a little bag of reused tags that I can pull out each December. So at this point, I will have that original pack of 500 tags for the remainder of my natural life, which is kind of the point. All of these things add charm without adding waste and they are all compostable. They make gifts feel really personal and thoughtful without needing to buy a single new item.

And honestly, when you stand back and you look at a pile of gifts wrapped this way, the paper, the fabric, the natural elements, it's just so beautiful.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (27:10.459)
So as we start wrapping this up, pun intended, I want to zoom out a little because all of these ideas aren't really about paper or fabric or cinnamon sticks. They're about how we relate to the things that we use and the habits that we pass on to the people around us. One of the biggest mindset shifts for me over the years has simply been valuing materials more, slowing down enough to think, what do I already have?

what will actually get used, what can be reused next year, and what will happen to this when I'm done with it. And that little pause, that moment of awareness really does start to shift everything. And your kids pick up on this too. When they see us saving gift bags or bows or smoothing out a piece of craft paper to reuse it, folding the fabric and tucking it away for next year, it teaches them that things aren't disposable just because they're cheap or seasonal.

You don't even have to say a word about it. They'll notice it. And as I mentioned earlier a few times, I really have noticed people interacting differently with gifts that are wrapped in simple or reusable materials. It's slower, they're more connected to it and they comment on it. They save part of it. They hand the wrapping back. It just creates this whole different rhythm around gift giving. One that feels a lot more intentional and a little less chaotic.

And this is connected to some of the conversations we've been having on the podcast lately, especially the secondhand gifts episode. It's about letting go of the pressure to get everything right or perfectly coordinated and instead focusing on care and use and longevity. These small shifts really do ripple outward. So since we've talked a lot about wrapping materials today, I just wanted to leave you with a very quick guide to what generally is.

and is not recyclable so that you're not standing over the blue bin on Boxing Day staring into the abyss. So to recap, usually recyclable slash compostable, plain brown craft paper, newsprint, plain brown paper bags, paper tape, any fully paper-based packaging and any sort of natural fiber. So hemp, 100 % wool, things like that, raffia.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (29:29.64)
They can go into your compost bin. Please do not put any type of string into your recycling box though, because that can gum up the works at the recycling plant. Not recyclable. Glitter. Ever. Anything with a foil or a metallic finish. Anything that's laminated or glossy coated paper. The plastic bows and ribbons and any rope handled gift bags. And of course, of course, please always check your local guidelines.

because the responsibility gets pushed onto us as individuals while these materials are mass produced without any consistent rules for how they're supposed to be disposed of. So always, always check. Thank you. But in the end, recycling isn't really the heart of this conversation. It's simply just paying attention to what we use and choosing the lower waste option when we can and modeling care in these small everyday ways. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be thoughtful.

With that in mind, let's move into this week's one small shift. So this week, just take a few minutes to look at what you already have at home. Check out your gift bag situation, the tissue paper, your ribbons, if you've got craft paper coming into the house, any paper bags that you might have tucked under the sink, and make a plan for how you want to wrap differently this year. Not every gift doesn't have to be a full overhaul, just an honest inventory and some small intentional shifts.

Maybe you decide you're gonna use up all the wrapping paper you already own before buying anything new. Maybe you find a few scarves at the thrift store and you're gonna use those for a shikki. And maybe you just find those paper bags under the sink so they're ready to go. This tiny bit of planning makes the whole season feel a little calmer. And it's the moment where people realize they probably don't need to buy anything at all. These tiny adjustments really do add up quickly. They keep things in use. They lower the stress of the season.

and they bring us back to what gift giving is supposed to feel like in the first place. Intentional and thoughtful and grounded in care and love. So that's a wrap for this week. And I promise the last time I will make that joke this episode. For everything that I've talked about today, whether you're looking for a tutorial or just a bit of visual inspiration, you can find the links down in the show notes. Until next time, start where you are, use what you have, and live a little greener.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (31:55.185)
Thanks for tuning in to Sustainable in the Suburbs. Every small step adds up and I'm so glad we're doing this together. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to follow the show, share it with a friend and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. You can find me at sustainableinthesuburbs.com or at Sarah Robertson Barnes on all the things. Until next time, start where you are, use what you have and live a little greener. This podcast is produced, mixed and edited by Cardinal Studio.

For more information about how to start your own podcast, please visit www.cardinalsstudio.co or email Mike at mike at cardinalsstudio.co. You can also find the details in the show notes.