Waste Free Celebrations

SHIPPING RATES. What a headache! I thought I'd screenshot the actual portal from NZ Post so you can see we aren't pulling the prices out of our ****. To send one box of crackers to the South Island is $32 by courier or $22 by snail mail. To send one box of crackers to Australia is $29 by snail mail, $41 by courier and $166 for express courier. If you order more items that increase the weight, then your shipping will go up -- a lot.
Bear in mind that the shipping cartons are custom made to fit our cracker boxes and are $2.38 each and we need to pay the person in dispatch to fill your order. All up, shipping and handling is a cost.

All that said, we are shortly switching from NZ Post to GSS and this will mean lower rates to the South Island although the North Island will remain much the same.

They're here! Our much awaited new Sew Your Own Kits without the fabric or ribbon so you can choose your own design from your favourite fabric store.

Sew Your Own Reusable Christmas crackers by Waste Free Celebrations Tired of rubbish at Christmas? Want to fill your crackers with quality, personalised gifts? If you've got a sewing machine then make your own crackers to las...

Get ready to unleash your creativity with our Sew Your Own kits now available in a customizable version! Supply your own fabric and ribbon to make it truly unique.

Paper bag from Woolworths $7.99... machine-made in China and gold foiled (so not recyclable). Reusable fabric bag that will last decades from Waste Free Celebrations, made by women in Afghanistan for $6.99. The choice is easy.

It doesn't matter what you celebrate. Just don't make a mess. Order now.

We have fabric bags and crackers going back four years that we've unearthed from boxes found under the stairs, samples of this year's new fabrics and samples of fabrics that we never proceeded with. Rummage through the listings like you lost your keys and find some bargain treasure!

www.wastefreecelebrations.co.nz

Our seconds and samples outlet sale is on now!

Outlet Sale

Swipe for sleeves! If you want to swap out your decor, sleeves are coming online this week! Whether it's Matariki, mid-wibter Christmas, nan's 90th a Tuesday night dinner party, you can now change out the fabric but keep all the fun!

Grab a coffee and watch this interview with Rahila, our superstar running the show in Kabul.
Rahila left Afghanistan at 2 years old and grew up as a refugee in Pakistan. Her mother, Hakima, was widowed and the family were in desperate poverty. Hakima would go into the forest each morning to cut firewood to sell on the side of the road then clean a local school in the afternoon, then do hand-sewing at night to try and make ends meet.
Rahila finished school in Year 6 and got married at 13 and had her first child at 14. After having 6 children, her husband was killed in a bomb blast in Peshawar so UNHCR worked with the NZ Govt to place her in NZ as a refugee in Auckland.
She has been here since 2014 but now explains why she wanted to go back to Kabul. What drives a refugee to go back?

A gift bag for you is a lifeline of desperately needed finance for these women. Please shop like someone's life depends on it -- because it does!

Former Afghan refugee returns to Kabul Waste Free Celebrations is all about making high-quality reusables to take the place of disposables for our festive occasions. We are a New Zealand company t...

This post is political but long overdue. We make gift bags for all celebrations, not just Christmas. We use fabrics for Eid, Hannukah and Diwali. We also sew religious christmas fabric as well as secular Santa Christmas fabric. They are all sewn by Muslim women in Afghanistan.
I asked my team how they feel about sewing Hannukah fabric in light of the war against Palestine. The consensus was that they have nothing against the Jewish people and they hoped they enjoyed their festivities and celebrated their religious holidays with "good happiness". But they asked that we don't export to Israel... this is a moot point because we only sell in NZ, Australia and the US anyway. They support the Jewish people, but not the government of Israel.
When I had a discussion with a senior talib about pur project, he welcomed us in and thanked us for providing jobs in full knowledge that we were manufacturing for Christian and Jewish holidays.
All of this to say, is that it is possible to get along, work together, and love your neighbour even if you disagree with them.

Paper bag, machine made in China $8.99 from leading supermarket.
Reusable fabric bag made by women in Afghanistan $5.99 from us.
Shop now!

Waste Free Celebrations - Reusable Christmas Crackers and Gift Bags Reusable heirloom quality Christmas products are the right way to have an eco-friendly Christmas without compromising on traditional festivity. We have a range of bespoke Christmas gift bags, and our patent pending Christmas Cracker.

Hot pink for Christmas? Yas!

Shafiqa was a maths and physics teacher at a boys school before the Taliban came to power. She is educated with a bright mind and sharp wit. She is no longer allowed to teach.
Her husband lost his arm when he was fighting against the Taliban many years ago so she is the only breadwinner in her house.
A for you is a bit of eco-friendly Christmas fun. For Shafiqa it's the only thing putting food on the table.

Waste Free Celebrations - Reusable Christmas Crackers and Gift Bags Reusable heirloom quality Christmas products are the right way to have an eco-friendly Christmas without compromising on traditional festivity. We have a range of bespoke Christmas gift bags, and our patent pending Christmas Cracker.

Here are my leaving thoughts as I depart Kabul. The clip is 5.30 minutes but worth a listen.... especially when I end up standing next to a senior talib commander at the perfume shop where he was choosing perfumes for his wife. I told him I was here to set up a Christmas factory in the heart of Afghanistan....

Setting up our new Christmas factory in the heart of Afghanistan. My reflections on Afghanistan, April 2024 after spending a week there, setting up our new factory. we employ women to sew reusable gift bags and Christmas cr...

I managed to meet with one family that I failed to evacuate back in 21. The boys go outside to get food if and when they can afford it but the three girls have not left the house in 2.5 years. They are sick, depressed and incredibly poor but still cooked lunch and fed us with what they have. Afghan hospitality is more generous than anything I have encountered in any other country.

We have been very fortunate to meet up with Patrick and Raafi from Ziba Foods who export heirloom dried fruit and nuts around the world. I met them at the Natural Pproducts Expo in LA and it was pure coincidence we were going to be in kabul at the same time. They have been generous enough to lend their expertise on the very complex issue of freight management in and out of Afghanistan. This part of pur operations has been causing a lot of 3am panic attacks so Im very grateful for their knowledge and generosity.

A HUGE thanks to those who donated to our appeal for more machines. We have three new Zoje industrial straight stitchers thanks to you!

Waking up in Kabul I forgot the sun is up by 4am. I forgot that at this altitude, I get blood noses. I forgot the sound of the minaar call to prayer ringing across the city at 5am. I forgot the absence of showers and having to ladle hot water over myself to wash. But everything else feels a bit like coming home. The city has changed beyond recognition from when I was here. There are now paved roads, street lights, supermarkets with a good selection of food that's not three years past its expiry date. All the bombed buildings are now shiny apartment blocks. The festering Street rubbish is (mostly) gone.
There are women on the streets without male escorts, no burqas in sight, and this morning Rahilas nieces started school. Education for girls had been banned beyond year 8 but since Ramadan, the limit has been lifted to year 10. It is expected to rise to year 12 shortly.
This isn't the Taliban-run country I was expecting. I don't want to diminish or ignore past atrocities or pretend everything is rosy but given a chance, Afghanistan could find its place in the international community

Made it.

Always look on the bright side of life. With a head scarf worn like this, it hides my double chin!

I've been going slightly mental trying to arrange all our components in Pakistan from NZ... fabric, ribbon, thread, tags, boxes, tubes, gift tags, packaging, inserts etc. I had a million balls in the air and was dropping most of them. So yesterday, we signed a MOU with a local company who will be our one-stop shop who will manage it all so that I have time to get out there and SELL. They have fully embraced our workshop in kabul and will ease the passage of goods going back and forth before final packaging and dispatch to NZ.
So it's big thanks to Mr Khan and especially our fixer Imran who went into bat like a pro to fix some of the mess.

I stupidly put all my makeup in my checked luggage, so I looked like the living dead by 2am at Dubai Airport. Problem solved in duty-free where a very kind assistant sampled lots of products on me in the hope of a big sale, but all I bought was a brow pencil.

Do you know the flooding outside in Dubai is the worst in 75 years?. Its carnage out there as they don't have the infrastructure for such massive water runoff. It's got nowhere to go, so it just pools everywhere. It looks a lot like the Auckland floods of Jan 2023.

Anyhoo, follow along on my trip through Pak/Afg where I will show you our cotton mill and other suppliers so we have complete transparency in our entire supply chain and you will know exactly where our products come from and who made them.

Eid Mubarak to all my wonderful team. May you enjoy the richness of the season and feel the embrace of family friends. And enjoy all the food that I know you've spent days making even though you were fasting! 🍇🍆🍅🥕🧄🧅🥒🫑🌶🍰🍬🍭🍫

Easter Bunny This super cute set of 4 (large, medium, small, tiny) is perfect for Easter. We only made these as samples so there aren't many! Get in quick!

Whoop! We've raised enough for three machines in the last 24 hours!!! Thank you so much. We want 10 plus solar panels so we still have a way to go. I know times are tough for most people -- budgets are stretched as it is but if it's within your reach to help out, there are Afghan women who would be eternally thankful.

Never underestimate the power of your wallet to shape the world you want to live in.

Hello friends! As you know, we have moved all our manufacturing to Kabul, Afghanistan. This was partly a business decision because it reduces our costs so we can make our product more affordable for you, but mostly a heart decision because that's who we are.
Our head of production, Rahila, who has worked for us for the last three years has returned to Kabul to set up our factory where we employ vulnerable women who are experiencing immeasurable hardship. I lived there in 2004-2006 as a humanitarian so I know the people and landscape really well -- hence my ongoing relationship with the Afghan community.
Each morning there is a line of over 100 people waiting outside in the hope of getting work. It is heartbreaking to turn people away when we have the work but lack the machinery to employ them.
In short, we have run out of money. We need another 20 sewing machines and 8 solar panels. City power only comes on for 3 hours a day in Kabul so you either run a diesel generator or get solar. Guess which one we chose?
Each machine can provide an income for upto 4 women as they can sew all hours of the day and work their schedules around family.
We are asking for donations to help us get there. As a business, not a charity, we can't give you a tax rebate and we will have to pay GST on what you give but 100% of the balance will go to Kabul.
Please select an amount you can donate below. If you donate $500 you will receive a free box of crackers! Businesses that donate will get a big shout out on all our socials and listed on our website as donors.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Yes I want to help! Greetings from Kabul! We have moved all our manufacturing to Kabul, Afghanistan. This was partly a business decision because it reduces our costs so we can make our product more affordable for you, but mostly a heart decision because that's who we are. Our head of production, Rahila, who has worked....