We’re Dreaming of a Green Holiday

DID YOU KNOW?
• Between Thanksgiving and New Years Day, Americans take an additional 25% of waste to the curb. That amounts to over 25 million tons of trash for the holiday season.
• If every family reused just 2 ft. of ribbon from holidays past, that would save 38,000 miles of ribbon — enough to literally tie a big bow around the entire planet.
• 2.7 million holiday cards are sent across the country too — that’s enough to fill an entire football field 10 stories high!
SO, WHAT TO DO?
Fill your recycling cart with:
• Corrugated cardboard boxes (flatten it out to fit more!)
• Gift boxes
• Catalogs
• Newspapers and all of those advertising inserts
• Wrapping paper (non-metallic only)
• Non-metallic greeting cards
HOW TO TRIM YOUR “WASTE-LINE”
• BYOB-Bring your own (shopping) bag.
• Send e-cards this year.
• Avoid gift wrap — just decorate the box. The comics pages makes great wrap for kids.
• Decide what catalogs you want, and rid yourself of the rest.
• Opt out of all 3rd Class mail lists — write to the Direct Marketing Association at P.O. Box 9008, Farmingdale, N.Y. 11735-9008.
• Opt out of credit card junk mail offers by calling 1-888-5OptOut.
• For shipping, use real popped corn (no butter) to protect fragile items, and tell your gift recipient to feed the birds once opened. Donate those … Styrofoam peanuts to your local packaging store.
• Rechargeable batteries and a charger are better choices to power those electronic goodies.
• Compost your trees and wreathes or buy a tree with roots, and transplant it. Don’t know what to get someone? Plant a tree in their honor!
• Go homemade with cookies, funky vinegars in saved wine bottles, or hand-knitted scarves and mittens.
• Skip packaging altogether with gifts of massage, sporting events, babysitting, dog walking or tickets to the museum. Always think about the packaging! If you can’t recycle it, buy something else instead!
• Holiday lights all in a bunch? HolidayLEDs.com will accept your old, incandescent Christmas lights, which will then be recycled. Be sure to ask neighbors and friends if they want to recycle their lights as well. You can reduce waste and shipping costs by sending all lights in one package.
• Did you get some great new things? Appliances, clothes, gadgets, cookware? Well, chances are great that you have some “less-new things” that would make a lot of people pretty happy. Donate them to your favorite charity or non-profit.

Reprinted with permission from RecycleBank.

Julia Wasson
Blue Planet Green Living