Christmas joy or junk: have cheap plastic gifts been unfairly demonised?

In Christmases past, OLIVIA WANNAN shunned plastic and opted for more expensive products, in an attempt to cut her environmental impact. But her investigation of the carbon footprint of the goods we buy found that blindly following these principles could hinder efforts to save the climate.

Come Christmas morning, little Joseph unwraps a gift from his aunty. He rips open the wrap; out falls two plastic toy cars, in a plastic and cardboard pack. The discarded packaging highlights the gift has been made in China, rather than New Zealand.

Joe is delighted by the cars, which he zooms around the lounge, as is Aunty by his reaction. But it is the type of gift many of us would classify as junk: it is (mostly) plastic and is made overseas by a generic toy company.

The goods we import carry a heavy environmental cost – responsible for about a third of the 42.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gases produced by Kiwi households in 2017, according to Statistics NZ.

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Kirsten Edgar​, a materials researcher at Callaghan Innovation, understands these concerns. Is it possible to know how much impact the toy cars had on the planet? “This is a really big, hard area and there are no easy answers,” she sympathises.

While Joseph and Aunty see a finished toy, Edgar knows everything that went into making that product. First, we go all the way back to an oil or fracking well, where most of the materials in the cars originated. Once extracted, crude oil is taken to be refined: heated and separated into components, one of which is used to make plastic.

These components are then shipped to another factory to be dyed and moulded into a part. That part might go to another facility where the toy is assembled, along with metal (which began its life in a mine, and also underwent refining and shaping) and other parts. The cars are then packaged and boxed up, ready for shipping.

All this took place long before Christmas, so the toys are ready to be loaded on to vast container ships heading to New Zealand and across the world. Then they are trucked from the ports to warehouses and stores and finally placed on shelves, from which Aunty plucked the pack during a trip to the mall.

Taking advantage of a global supply chain, cheaper labour and fewer environmental and social welfare regulations, it is a highly efficient way to create an inexpensive product, Edgar says.

The system is geared towards minimising the cost of production and introducing environmental standards interrupts the chain. So can something cheap be low-impact? “Based on what I know, I would say they do not have to be mutually exclusive but it is less likely,” she says.

If your priority is low emissions, which actions – from buying the more expensive brand to shopping at a local store – might reduce your carbon footprint at Christmas?

Splash the cash

The price tag of a gift won’t tell you much about its environmental impact, Edgar says. “A lot of times, you might be paying for something other than sustainability – you may be paying for brand, for influence, for prestige.”

In fact, a company with a higher profit margin will have more in the coffers to spend on carbon-heavy activities such corporate travel, conferences and events (think the business that flies all its staff overseas for the Christmas party).

In saying that, brands with eco-friendly certification (from Environmental Choice to Toitū Envirocare carbonzero) are likely to charge a premium. Redesigning a product to meet higher standards will likely hike the company’s manufacturing costs.

For example, The Warehouse has started to make clothes out of Better Cotton Initiative-certified material. This material is produced using efficient fertiliser practices, which should reduce its carbon footprint, says chief sustainability officer David Benattar​.

“There is a cost for us to use Better Cotton Initiative, because the programme needs to be managed… What really matters here is that we have a safer, sounder, healthier environment.”

Yet other redesigns – particularly when packaging is reduced – can reduce costs, he said.

All in all, there is little point forking out more cash unless you are getting a climate-friendly stamp in return.

Supporting local

New Zealand-made goods can be a climate-friendly choice, though possibly not for the first reason you would think. Our factories and toy workshops – at least the ones running on electricity – will be some of the greenest in the world, since more than 80 per cent of our power comes from renewable sources.

In contrast, more than half of all electricity in China’s national grid is generated by burning coal.

The transport from factory to store is complicated, says Jeff Vickers​, a life cycle expert at Thinkstep. “Shipping stuff from China is not particularly high impact compared with trucking stuff across New Zealand. It is not a huge difference.”

That changes the moment an item is put on a plane, he says. “The impact of that can be quite significant … it might be more significant than the making of it.”

According to government data, sending a 10-kilogram parcel from Beijing to Auckland by plane will produce the equivalent of nearly 130kg of carbon dioxide, whereas the same journey on a container ship will emit a fraction of that: 2kg.

For these reasons, shopping at a local store can be a low-carbon rule of thumb, even if the item comes from overseas.

Retailers place their orders months in advance, Vickers says. “Toys will mostly be coming by sea, rather than by plane. Sea is the most efficient form of freight. The impact of sea freight collectively is quite large but that is only because there is so much.”

The planetary impact of transport does not end once the product is on the shelf, Vickers warns. The greenhouse gas produced travelling from the store to your home can double a product’s carbon footprint.

“The manufacture of products in a country like China is highly automated and highly efficient and everything is happening in bulk,” he says. “A car weighs a tonne, so to transport a tonne of steel with you in it around, it is quite a lot of energy … If you are coming from out of town to buy a toy and driving that one toy home – it might be better to combine trips.”

Is plastic evil?

There has been a growing focus on the materials our things are made from, with zero-waste activists advising us to choose metal, paper and wood, and demonising tougher-to-recycle materials such as plastic.

However, these campaigners look at only one piece of the puzzle – the product’s disposal. Their goal is to minimise the amount going to landfill, not the levels of greenhouse gas produced during a product’s lifespan.

Plastic is polluting our land and waterways but ditching it can have adverse consequences. Forgoing a plastic wrap can mean fresh food spoils more quickly – producing methane in the landfill when it is tossed out, on top of the emissions wasted growing the food in the first place.

Edgar says there is no perfect, low-carbon material. “I do personally believe there are places for plastic … You can do things like glass bottles, things like aluminium cans, but all of those are heavier, they take more power to manufacture, to recycle, they take more fuel to transport.”

Plastic can even be a climate-friendly choice.

One study compared the carbon footprints of a fake, plastic tree against buying a real pine each year. The results can change depending on how close you live to the plantation but researchers found the plastic tree had a lower carbon footprint on average – as long as you reuse it for at least five years.

The study did not look at what may be the greenest (though perhaps impractical) option: decorating a living, potted tree year after year.

Surprisingly, a big chunk of carbon comes from the tree’s lighting. Although the majority of electricity used by the bulbs is from renewable generation, nearly 18 per cent of our power comes from burning coal and gas. Opting for LED tree lights is an effective way of cutting the footprint of your tree.

As no material is good or evil, Joseph’s mum does not need to stress over the toys being plastic. Instead, focus on the quality of the items, Vickers says.

“What you want to avoid is the consumable toy that you use for two minutes that then gets thrown in the bin. Because ultimately then you just have to make another toy,” he adds. “Ideally, you want to choose a toy that is something you would want to pass down.”

In that way, robust and versatile plastic toys can be a responsible gift, he says. “We have got Duplo blocks that were my wife’s when she was a kid, that now my kids use.”

One key green question: does the toy require parts – such as fresh batteries – that need to be replaced regularly? “If so, that might be something you want to avoid,” Vickers advises.

Time to ditch stuff?

Yet physical goods are not the only things producing greenhouse gas at Christmas. There is the carbon dioxide from the drive to the airport and flight to Nana’s house, the methane burped out by the cow that became Christmas dinner – even the hydrofluorocarbons from the fridge in your hotel room.

Typically, the biggest contributors to your carbon footprint are diet and transport. According to Motu’s carbon calculator, a family of two parents earning the median wage plus two children produce nearly 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent each year. Of that, about 15 tonnes comes from food, 8 from transport and 5.5 from housing. Everything else the family buys – including services and entertainment plus clothing and physical goods – contributes 4.2 tonnes.

Before you bid adieu to gifts to cut your carbon footprint, keep in mind other choices may offer a better bang for buck. If our median wage family purchased nothing but groceries for a year, they would prevent up to 4.2 tonnes of emissions – but they could save nearly as much greenhouse gas by cutting back on red meat from every day to twice a week.

Oxfam’s Tim Gore​ says income makes a sizeable difference to emissions. Most Kiwis have a carbon footprint “tens of times” higher than the poorest half of the world’s population, on average.

Our footprint does not expand evenly as we get richer. As our pay cheques rise, our road and aviation emissions bloom. How about the stuff we buy? “It is a little bit more of a mixed picture … It is less clear-cut than with transport.”

Even so, rethinking what we buy is a planetary positive, Gore says. “I would not want to undermine that movement away from excessive consumption … That is the fundamental problem.”

What can companies do?

Businesses use every trick in the book to sell their wares. With a growing consumer interest in sustainability, why didn’t Aunty spot toys advertising themselves as lower-carbon alternatives when she was Christmas shopping?

The short answer is most companies have little idea how much carbon was produced in the creation of their goods. Even those that put their brand names on products often don’t make the items themselves. Instead, they have a contract with a factory, often in Asia, to make their goods for them to a specified standard.

This includes companies trying to lower their planetary impact. Kathmandu is a Toitū-certified carbonreduce business, which means it measures and tries to reduce its greenhouse gases. It has focused on electricity emissions for the past eight years, cutting these by 9 per cent.

The company’s goal to be carbon neutral by 2025 only covers the emissions created after the products are made, from the shipping of items from factories to stores to corporate travel and the processing of store waste.

Kathmandu cannot specify how much carbon is produced in the manufacture of, for example, a sleeping bag or pair of tramping boots, chief executive Reuben Casey​says. “One of the challenges with carbon overall is there are so many moving parts in the supply chain. To really get a good view on it is really difficult.”

Casey says the company wants to understand this footprint better but that could require a complete overhaul. “You would really have to own your own facilities and only be manufacturing your own product in those facilities or have half of the facility, otherwise it gets pretty messy.”

Local skincare company Snowberry is an exception. As it measures all the carbon in the supply chain and produces its products here, it can be certain the manufacture of 50 millilitres of face serum emitted roughly 0.18kg of carbon dioxide (at least one purchased in 2018/19, as it can change from year to year). This 0.18kg was then offset with carbon credits.

That makes Snowberry’s products carbon-neutral, certified by Toitū. A complete understanding of its emissions, from the cultivation of the botanical ingredients to the delivery to stores, allows Snowberry to tackle its biggest sources of carbon.

Operating manager Mark Henderson​ says more than 80 per cent of the products’ emissions are from manufacturing and packaging. Though the company uses local production whenever possible, imported ingredients are responsible for a big chunk of that. “You have got to air freight and sea freight a lot of material.”

The company has reformulated its products to use fewer ingredients, he says. “It not only reduces your embodied emissions but it also reduces your manufacturing time and obviously reduces your freight.”

It has also invested in solar panels to power its research and development centre and head office, with the ingredient processing plant to follow. It also hopes to harvest rainwater, Henderson says. “A lot of people do not realise water has a carbon emission. It is all about the processing and distribution of water [and] the processing of water waste.”

Should every company be forced to measure and list the carbon emissions of its products? Callaghan Innovation’s Kirsten Edgar says this idea would make it easy for customers to compare.

”Because of the complexities, I think it would be really hard to institute but that does not mean we should not be trying. It would be such a great goal to have that available,” she says.

Although few companies currently understand the greenhouse gas created from their overseas-made goods, that could soon change. The Warehouse is developing its own system, Benattar says.

“My hope is that … in about a year, we will have much more sophisticated measurements and assessment tools. And I am hoping these tools will be made available to the industry.”

Why, big spender?

Cutting holiday consumption won’t just help the climate, it will ease financial anxiety. Many Kiwis can’t afford to celebrate and risk going into debt to do so.

Yet most people cannot imagine the occasion without piles of presents. In the run-up to December 25, we are inundated with prompts and cues encouraging us to part with our cash, says Victoria University psychologist Dougal Sutherland​.

“It is cleverly done by marketers and advertisers. They have managed to wheedle their way in so that now this is part of Christmas,” he says.

Gifts are the go-to way we demonstrate our affection at this time of year. This may be especially true for time-poor parents, Sutherland says. “Maybe they are working two jobs, maybe they are working long hours – the giving of a gift can signify: this is how much I love you.”

This gesture is compounded by messages that Christmas is a time of year to relax our self-restraint, he adds.

“We do it all the time: I usually would not buy something this big but it is Christmas. I usually would not eat this much but it is Christmas. I usually would not have a drink before 10am but it is Christmas, after all. There are lots of cues to give ourselves a free pass at Christmas. That can extend to buying things.”

To ease environmental worries, shoppers are increasingly opting for experiential gifts or vouchers. Still, many feel they need to pair that with a material item, such as a box of chocolates.

“I think it still carries some weight, the physical gifting of something,” Sutherland says. “I don’t think we will ever get away from that. Maybe we don’t want to – but perhaps toning it down might be useful.”

Cutting back may cause us to put more value on the things we have, he suggests. “The ready availability of most items in general, especially compared with the past, does make us treat gifts with a greater throw-away mentality.”

Tips for a low-carbon shop

To minimise gift emissions this year, here is some advice from the experts:

• Plan in advance. Before you start shopping, you can set gift expectations with the wider family, such as arranging a Secret Santa for the adults, Victoria University psychologist Dougal Sutherland says. Setting a budget and list of presents will avoid a last-minute panic shop. “I have been in the position where you think: Jeez, I haven’t got anything, so you rush out and you buy something quickly,” he says. “At that time, you are probably more susceptible to marketing anyway, because you are not thinking as clearly.”
• Buy secondhand. Re-used goods can have a carbon footprint one-third the size of a new product, according to Ben Gleisner, who developed carbon-counting app CoGo. That is because the total manufacturing emissions of the item are shared across each person who uses it (the same effect kicks in when you rent a product, instead of buying it). A preloved or upcycled gift does not carry the same stigma as it once did, Gleisner says. Secondhand clothing boutiques are popular places to shop. “There are so many more options now for secondhand.”

• Opt for local, service gifts. Non-physical gifts can be a thoughtful option for those people who have everything. However, these gifts can produce a lot more greenhouse gas than a physical item, particularly if the activity burns a lot of fuel (so perhaps avoid that private jet hire). However, a person’s time does not create a lot of additional greenhouse gas, says Gleisner, making a voucher for a massage, facial or an art or yoga class a climate-friendly choice. “There is very, very little carbon.” If you go down the experiential gift road, consider proximity. If your loved ones must drive across the country to cash in a restaurant voucher, those carbon emissions are on you. Minimise this by choosing local businesses within walking or cycling distance of their home.

• Support onshore businesses. As well as keeping the regional economy healthy, shopping from local retailers can reduce emissions, even if the product was manufactured overseas. If you buy directly from a foreign store, it is likely to be air freighted, whereas your downtown toy shop probably had the item shipped by sea. If you are browsing online, check to see if the business drop-ships. That is when a firm – even those operating domestically – only sends the item into the country after your order is placed. As the parcel will arrive by plane, this is a carbon-intensive technique.

• Make a day of it. Keep in mind that the transport of the goods from the store to your home is a key component of any product’s emissions. If it is feasible, attempt a car-less shop, using your feet, a bike or public transport. If you need to take the car, try to get everything you will need in one go – another reason why a gift list is a good idea. If you end up forgetting one item, Thinkstep’s Barbara Nebel​ suggests you look online (from a local store, of course). As long as it does not involve a plane journey, home delivery is often a lower-carbon option. That is because it is a lot more efficient for a courier van or delivery truck to drop hundreds of parcels around the neighbourhood than for all those households to drive to the shops and back.