Before buying celebration decorations, build a reuse kit

The Climate Tribe’s Love This Land campaign, announced on 14 October, asks how the UAE can celebrate its 55th Eid Al Etihad with fewer throwaway materials. Its launch discussion included reusing flags and scarves instead of buying them again each year. For a household or office team, the practical starting point is a small inventory made before the shopping list.

Bring last year’s decorations into one place and sort them into three groups: ready to use, needing attention and no longer usable. Check the condition of fabric, fixings and storage containers. Photograph the usable items and record quantities. This keeps several people from buying the same thing and makes the next planning conversation concrete.

Choose a modest display around what you already have. Sketch where each item will go and ask the venue or building team what can be attached to walls, windows or shared spaces. Keep circulation clear. These are planning suggestions, not new rules announced by the campaign; the relevant venue’s conditions still need to be checked.

For gaps, try a borrowing list before a purchase list. Give each borrowed item an owner, a collection date and a return date. If buying something, consider whether it has a clear place in next year’s kit and whether someone can maintain and store it. Reusable is a plan for an item’s second outing, not merely a label on its packaging.

Leave time for making as well as buying. The campaign announcement says The Climate Tribe’s Hub in MiZa, Abu Dhabi, will welcome the community on Friday afternoons in October and November to make confetti from waste leaves and flowers. It does not give an exact session time or booking conditions. Confirm those details with the organiser before travelling; a general invitation does not establish available places on a particular afternoon.

Even when using plant material, agree how it will be contained and collected afterwards. A craft activity and permission to scatter materials at another venue are different questions. For a home or office celebration, a tray-based display can make packing up simpler than a room-wide clean-up. Decide who will collect the pieces and return borrowed items before the event begins.

Label the storage box with its contents, add a photograph and note anything that needs replacing. Keep it somewhere the next organiser can find. Frontier25’s wider campaign action agenda is due in November; the October announcement is not a new legal ban. This kit plan is an independent editorial suggestion for acting on the reuse idea now. The decorations deserve a second appearance, not a mystery cupboard.

Cover: an original AI-generated conceptual illustration of an imagined community craft courtyard. It is not The Climate Tribe’s actual Hub or a photograph of a workshop.