The world is filled with trash.
Landfills are overflowing, and the holiday season only heaps more waste onto this unavoidable problem.
During this festive time of the year, when it feels as if the entire world focuses on buying gifts, small businesses provide jobs and create durable products while large corporations mass produce and destroy the environment.
When it comes to small businesses, real people make nearly every piece sold, checking each individual product for any imperfections or weak points. However, in large corporations, owners will never see most of their wares until they are placed on the shelves. This causes products to become less meaningful. The holiday-induced rush to produce retail goods causes many items to become damaged, which leads to an exponential increase in returns.
Optoro, a company dedicated to the resale of returned items reports that just last year, 816 billion dollars of inventory was returned in the US. Those returns contributed 9.5 billion pounds of trash to landfills.
Shoppers are far more likely to visit a small business in person. Small businesses provide higher quality, handmade products, and fitting rooms for customers to try on the product before they buy it, limiting return rate.
While large corporations are, as the name suggests, large, small businesses still make up about 96 percent of all businesses in Virginia, according to the Small Business Majority.
This creates over a million jobs, most local, for all people, including students.
Small business items are unique and meaningful, making them a perfect holiday gift dedicated exclusively to the giftee.
So, during the gift rush of the holidays, instead of buying that mass-produced, unoriginal shirt off of Amazon because it’s cheap and easy, try to find a customizable, handmade mermaid figurine from the Mermaid Factory or another small business in the ViBe Creative District.
