More Holiday Cheer, Less Holiday Waste
Posted on November 26th, 2008 - 10:30 AMAbout the author: Felicia Chou is a Communications Specialist in EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. She recently graduated from Syracuse University with a M.S in Media Management.
This is always a crazy time of year. In my family, the holidays are all about large quantities: lots of food, lots of gifts, and lots and lots of relatives. This year, I’m going to simplify one part of the holiday experience (and help the environment at the same time) by reducing the amount of material that gets thrown out after the holidays. There are a lot of things you can do to reduce waste around the holidays – here are a few:
Find the greenest tree. You can save a tree (and reduce greenhouse gas emissions) by buying a potted tree that you can plant after the holidays instead of cutting a tree down. If you do decide to dispose of your tree, look for ways to recycle it instead of sending it to a landfill; your community solid waste department may collect the trees for mulching.
Send personal, paperless greetings. Save paper by creating your own greeting cards from scrap paper – this can be a fun family project or a way to give your cards a personal touch. You can also skip the paper altogether and e-mail an electronic card. If you do plan to buy cards, look for ones containing a high percentage of recycled content.
Reuse wrapping paper. Not every piece of wrapping paper gets ripped to shreds; some can be saved and used again next year, which saves money and trees. You can also “wrap” gifts in reusable gift bags instead of wrapping paper. And if you want to avoid wrapping paper altogether, give gifts that need little or no packaging, such as concert tickets or gift certificates.
Look for Earth-friendly electronics. Electronics are a popular gift, and some electronics purchases are more environmentally-friendly than others. For example, before you buy a new computer, ask yourself if the performance you’re looking for can be gained by upgrading your current computer, perhaps by upgrading your hard drive or RAM. If you do decide to buy a new computer, make sure you buy one that is Energy Star-qualified, which can save both energy and money. Also, an online tool called EPEAT (exit disclaimer) makes it easy to find the computer with the best environmental attributes. Finally, don’t throw away the electronics that get replaced; there are lots of opportunities to reuse or recycle old electronics.
Tags: energy star, EPEAT, recycling
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Question of the Week
November 26th, 2008 at 11:09 am
For greeting cards, you can also buy cards that can be planted to bloom into wildflowers. The seeds are embedded right in the paper. It’s a shame to think of all the paper thrown out once all those holiday cards are done being displayed. I’ve looked around and they can be pricier than the bargains you can find for “regular” cards. If you don’t want to buy the degradeable cards, a good idea for reusing cards is to cut off the front/design part of the card and use it as a decorative and unique gift tag for next year’s presents. My sister in law does this… just tape the card front to the present. I’ve started this and have a bunch left over from last year.
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November 26th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Excellent ideas - Another idea for wrapping paper is to use read newspapers for wrapping and have the kids decorate with some festive cutouts in colored paper or use stamps or even old fashioned potato stamps to decorate the parcels - gives the kids something to do and lets them get their creative juices flowing - of course you would have to do theirs. I do this myself and I am no kid ! so it is a nice green option for anyone as the newsprint can be recycled as usual. You can really get some good graphic design compositions with black/white and brights color combos as well.
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November 26th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I wish that we could eliminate all plastic bags from all shops, supermarkets and department stores as there is now more than 6 times the amount of plastic to plankton in the waters. And it is coming back to us in the fish that we eat! If everyone would carry a shopping bag like our parents did before the invention of plastic, and boycotted plastic bags, we could make a real difference to the health of the ocean.
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Richard reply on December 1, 2008 8:10 am:
People need to learn to put trash in trash cans again. This is not as good as recycling but I see people throwing trash out of their car windows and it looks just like the TV ad with the American Indian gentleman in the 60s and the 70s.
Maybe we need to replay this ad or develop a new one!
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November 30th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Great post!
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December 1st, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Old, out-of-date maps make great wrapping paper! They are often times big enough for those larger gifts.
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December 1st, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I use reusable gift boxes and shred wrapping paper in my shredder for decorative fluff. I’ll post pics when I get home.
http://recycleraccoon.wordpress.com
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