Greening Up Your Holiday
WEEKLY GREEN TIPS – Tips for reducing waste during the holidays!
Americans throw away 25% more between Thanksgiving & New Year’s Day. With ‘America Recycles Day’ on November 15th we get our recycling gears in motion, well ahead of the holiday season.
Here are some ideas….
- Buy a service or experience instead of a gift. Visit www.wastefreeholidays.com Discounts of 15% or more on music, plays, museums, restaurant meals, massages and other gifts that enjoy the benefit of belonging to the waste-free category.
- Consider not purchasing any wrappings or ribbons this year. Most wrapping paper is not recyclable and ends up in the landfill. Let your creativity flow as you wrap with old magazines, kid’s artwork, comics, decorate with a sprig of greenery, cut out of old cards for tags or simply leave off the wrapping altogether.
- Opt out of the traditional card mailing routine. 1.9 billion Christmas cards are sold during the upcoming season, which represent about 300,000 trees. If you decide to purchase cards, look for the recycled content symbol.
- Americans energy consumption rises by 27% during the holiday season. Buy LED light bulb strands – they use 90% less energy than conventional holiday lights.
- Recycle your Christmas tree. Each year 10 million trees end up in the landfill. Visit www.earth911.org to find the nearest tree-recycling program near you.
- Use cloth linens and napkins instead of paper.
- Buying a new cell phone or a family member is getting a new phone – recycle the old one. You can drop off old cell phones at any Staples store as part of the Sierra Club cell phone recycling program.