The gift of re-giving: Sustainability group has presents of mind to reduce Christmas waste

It's a nice blue, grey and green knitted scarf — probably homemade — but Melissa Nielsen doesn't have a lot of space at home, and she doesn't think she'll be able to keep it.

So, the scarf is offered up at a "re-gift exchange" in Vancouver, along with unwanted items from a couple dozen other people.

"I got this scarf from a friend, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it was actually re-gifted to me from a Secret Santa with his group of friends," said Nielsen.

"I do feel a little bit bad giving it away … and I hope that it will keep someone else warm this year," she said.

Nielsen is a board member for the group called Goal 12 that organized the re-gifting event at a bar on Wednesday night. The local group took its name from No. 12 in the list of U.N. sustainable development goals: sustainable consumption and production.

The group organizes regular social events focused on reducing waste. According to board member Belinda Li, the idea just made sense for the period after the holidays.

"All of us were just agonizing over the fact that we were going to get all these gifts, and they're not quite the right things for us," said Li. "But people gave it to us and [they] care, and we didn't want to waste them."

One of the items Li brought was a fancy package of olives.

"I don't really like olives," she said. "I got olives for one of my gifts, and other people love olives, so they can take it."

Items covering a long table at the pub included things like clothing, a sturdy gym bag, a 2019 calendar and artwork.

"It seems that Under Armour [clothing] is really popular at this event, because we have three Under Armour items," Li added.

There was also plenty of chocolate, but attendees were invited to immediately break into the packages and treat themselves, forgoing the selection process applied to most of the stuff.

For the bulk of the items, distribution was based on a bidding system.

Attendees had five tickets that they put into cups associated with the items they wanted. Then, names were drawn to decide who would take home the more hotly contested items.

The hope is that everything would find a welcoming home, so that nothing would wind up unused or in the trash.

Given the interest people were taking in many of the items, it appeared unlikely that a re-re-gifting party would be necessary.

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