Here are some ideas to celebrate Valentine’s Day while minimizing your waste and impact on our environment : 

• Ditch the Valentine’s Day Card: Send an ecard, write them a handwritten love letter or just give them a call or text to let them know how you feel about them. 
• Eco-Friendly Flowers: Buy a rose bush or a flower plant and plant it with your significant other. You could also buy a houseplant and watch it grow together. 
• Gift homemade sweets: Make your own sweets like cupcakes, cookies, brownies, candy, and chocolate-covered fruit at home would not only be a sentimental gift you can also save some money in your pocket. 
• Homemade gifts: Upcycle a gift for them – create a t-shirt, blanket, a collage of your favorite pictures together, create a stuffed animal from their favorite piece of clothing, etc. 
• Eco-Friendly Dates: Have a stay at home date! – Karaoke night, have a picnic, have your own spa session, watch a movie. You could also go on a bike ride together, go camping or go stargazing. Have a romantic dinner at home, host a salsa dancing class, cook together with your significant other or order takeout (Extra-tip: just make sure it doesn’t come in disposable containers or with disposable utensils).

The small things we do daily go a long way in conserving our natural resources, lowering our carbon footprint, and minimizing waste. Incorporating tips and tricks for holidays not only helps minimize your impact, but can also be an opportunity to teach these practices with extended family and friends. Little by little, we can do our part to preserve our planet and while it may seem minuscule in comparison to the bigger tasks at hand – like enacting climate action at higher, corporate levels – the local impact of these little things adds up to something big.