Green Holiday Tips

From Live Earth

Green Holiday TipsSubmitted by jgeeslin on 22 December, 2009 - 13:45
How can you celebrate, but make your holidays as green as they can be? Read about how to make your own wrapping paper, make tasty eco-friendly holiday dinners, share the ride, and recycle your tree on the holiday edition of our blog!

How can you make your holidays as green as they can be? Here are some great ideas:

Make Your Own Wrapping Paper
Most mass-produced wrapping paper you find in stores is not recyclable and ends up in landfills. Instead, try using creative ways to be eco-friendly. Wrap presents with old maps, the comics section of a newspaper, or children's artwork. Or use a scarf, attractive dish towel, bandana, or some other useful cloth item. If every family wrapped just three gifts this way, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields.

Buy Energy-Saving Holiday Lights
Now you can decorate your house with LED lights that use 90% less energy than conventional holiday lights, and can save your family up to $50 on your energy bills during the holiday season! LED lights are now available at many major retailers, like Target.

Use Organic and Local Foods to make your Holiday Meals
Check out your local famer’s markets and co-ops. Support those local farmers who grow sustainable meat and produce. Not only does it taste better, but you'll be doing your part for the planet too.

Give a Gift the Gives Back!
Help support all those wonderful charities that are working to make the world a better place for others.
Click here for more.

Recycle Your Christmas Tree
Each year, 10 million Christmas trees end up in the landfill. While your tree won't fit in the recycling bin with your newspapers and bottles, you can recycle your tree: many cities offer programs to turn your tree to mulch or wood chips. Check out www.earth911.org to find the tree-recycling program near you.

Try soy or beeswax candles
They are cleaner and gentler on the environment but are every bit as beautiful and fragrant. Plus they last longer!

Carpool to the Party
If you’re the one entertaining, don’t let all your guests drive separately to the party! Include a carpool suggestion on the invite. Or register your event with Ride Amigos! They take care of everything from arranging carpools, rideshares, taxi shares and even calculates the CO2 saved by rideshares in offsetting the carbon footprint of the event.

Thermostat Smarts
Turn down your thermostat a few notches before your guests arrive. As more and more guests arrive, the room’s temperature will rise to a comfortable but not stuffy level and people won’t be sneaking outside for fresh air.

Check out these eco-friendly gift-wrapping ideas from our friends at Your Daily Thread:



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