Reduce Pesticide Use
Pour boiling water or white vinegar on small weeds. For larger areas where you don't want any growth, lay down old fabric or newspaper. There are about 110,000 human poisonings from herbicides, insecticides, and pesticides in the United States each year.
CHESTERTOWN GOES GREEN FOR THE HOLIDAYS
From the Daily Green
Avoid Overnight Shipping
Select ground transportation, instead of rush delivery, for your mailing needs and cut down on fossil fuel use and pollution. Ground shipping tends to be six times more energy efficient than air. Also, because airplanes release their greenhouse gases way up in the atmosphere, they tend to do more damage than gases emitted at ground level, at least as far as global warming is concerned.
Avoiding overnight delivery will also save you a bundle of money, since companies add a hefty price for the service.
Last Minute Green Gifts That Give Back
Need another stocking stuffer or easy gift idea for someone who cares about wildlife and the planet? Consider getting them an animal "adoption" or other sponsorship to help protect our world.
Some ideas include a gift that helps defend wild manatees ($25, 800-432-5646), tigers (starting at $25) or wolves (starting at $25). Or "adopt" a rescued zoo or circus elephant at Tennessee's The Elephant Sanctuary. The Nature Conservancy also has great options to give a gift membership, adopt an acre of rainforest in Costa Rica, or sponsor a coral reef. Check out Mercy Corps, which provides aid and sustainable development to areas devastated by war or disasters. Or donate to the Betsy Lydon Fund, a cash award handed out by Slow Food USA to preserve family farms and biodiversity. Call 718-260-8000 for more information.
Use Recycled Paper Gift Wrap
This holiday season, cut down on waste and save resources by choosing recycled and alternative fiber paper for your gift-wrapping needs. During the holidays, Americans will send nearly 2 billion cards and use more than 38,000 miles of ribbon. Then there's gift wrap. Between Thanksgiving and New Year's, the average American household increases its trash output by 25%, resulting in 5 million extra tons of garbage. According to the Carnegie Mellon Green Practices initiative, "If every American family wrapped just three presents in reused materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields."
So what to do? Instead of buying any old wrapping paper, pick up some made from recycled paper or alternative, tree-free fibers like hemp. You'll be surprised how beautiful new designs are. Options include offerings from Smith & Hawken, Paporganics, Of The Earth and Fish Lips Paper Designs. Or, get a little crafty and repurpose what you have around the house. Wrap presents in old posters, magazine and newspaper pages or paper bags. Decorate those with your own colors and designs for a fun, personal touch. You can also use reusable cloth gift bags, now sold by companies such as Lucky Crow.
Choose LED Holiday Lights
Save energy, and money, this holiday season by replacing your old strands of incandescent bulbs with new LEDs (light emitting diodes). Appearing during the darkest time of the year, holiday lights brighten hearts, as well as neighborhoods and landscapes. The good news is LEDs use a fraction of the energy of conventional light bulbs (up to about 15% currently), and they last for many years. Based on semiconductors, they're cool to the touch and extremely durable, meaning they are great for many applications (especially where there is a fire hazard).
In the past, LEDs have been relatively expensive, but prices have been steadily coming down. Today, a strand of LED holiday lights typically goes for between $20 and $30. They are available in a wide range of colors and styles, from icicles to snowflakes and more, and can be ordered online, from local hardware stores or big box retailers like Home Depot, Lowe's, Target and Big Lots. HolidayLeds.com will even take back your old incandescent strands. The first 100 participants will receive one free set of LED lights, and the next 100 will receive a 10% coupon.
Artificial Christmas Tree? Buy American
If you do choose to go with an artificial Christmas tree for your holiday celebrations, buy one that has been made in America. This will greatly decrease the chances for contamination with lead or other toxins, preserves much-needed domestic manufacturing jobs and reduce shipping.
Deciding what type of Christmas tree is greenest is no easy task, and there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Real trees bring a slice of nature into your home, sequester carbon emissions and provide some habitat when they are raised, which is mostly on farms these days. They also require a lot of fuel to ship (unless you can find a locally raised one) and may be farmed intensively, with pesticides that can drift into the environment.
Artificial trees are the choice of about 70 percent of Americans. They can last for decades, even generations, if taken care of, meaning no new resources are needed. They are made of petroleum products, however, typically polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which is known to release toxic byproducts during manufacture. Most fake trees come from China, and a number have been cited for toxic contaminants. They also generally aren't recyclable, though you can always donate them to others. A few sources of American-made Christmas trees include New Jersey's Holiday Tree and Trim Co. and USChristmastree.com.
Recycle Your Christmas Tree
Make a dent in holiday waste this year by "recycling" your fresh Christmas tree after you are done celebrating. Instead of taking up valuable space in landfills, where decay is painfully slow because of a lack of oxygen, Christmas trees can be readily ground into wood chips or made into useful compost. Considering that nearly 29 million households opted for a real Christmas tree in 2006, that's a lot of wood chips!
To make it easy, the industry group National Christmas Tree Association has teamed up with Scottsdale, Arizona-based conservation group Earth911 to point consumers in the right direction with their trees. On their website, you can enter your zip code to find the nearest of 3,800-plus spots nationwide that accept old trees.
Recycle Your Holiday Waste
You now know to look for recycled paper and alternative fiber wrapping paper for the holidays, but it's easy to forget to make sure all that material gets recycled when you are done celebrating. This year, collect the paper, bows and boxes and keep them out of your garbage.
Between Thanksgiving and New Year's, the average American household increases its trash output by 25%, resulting in 5 million extra tons of garbage. But it doesn't have to be a total loss. Most paper can be readily recycled, either through curbside programs or local drop-off centers. The trick is to prepare by having a box or bag ready, so when everyone starts tearing through their presents under the tree in an ecstatic frenzy, you can easily divert the scraps into one convenient location.
Better than third-party recycling is to save wrapping paper, bows and boxes for reuse later. If you have room, you can use them for next year, or possibly even other holidays. Wrapping paper scraps make great packaging or craft material, and ribbons can be used as ties.
From Gaiam.com
10 ways to give a thoughtfully wrapped present and give back to the Earth too.
- Eco-shiniest
Say "silver bells" without leaving a metallic taste in your mouth. A different twist on recycled paper, recycled aluminum foil adds shiny happiness and closes the loop on recycling. Tie on some colorful raffia or hemp twine or this beguiling recycled silk sari yarn to up the festive factor. - Most re-useful
Reusable gift bags or shopping bags make an ingenious alternative to gift wrap, and these days they come in all manner of styles, from basic to uber-green to glam.
If you're a whiz with your Singer, whip up your own cloth tote bags or gift bags. Not so much? Check out these luminous drawstring gift sleeves by Lyziwraps, named after founder Jocelyn Childs' daughter, who designed a prototype for her eighth grade "Innovation" competition seven years ago. - Best "direction"
Let surplus maps lead the way to sustainable wrapping. Reclaimed subway maps and topographical maps give your package a hip design. Not to mention, they're educational. - Brightest topper
Add a bulb instead of a bow — a compact fluorescent bulb, that is. You can't stick it on top of your head, but when you stick it on top of your gift you'll help reduce your gift recipient's carbon footprint (and electric bill). - Most appreciated
Make the wrapping part of the gift! Containers make great no-wrapping-needed packaging: A bucket or watering can is easy to fill with gardening supplies, and a mixing bowl or stockpot makes the perfect package for your favorite cook. And don't forget soft wrapping paper alternatives that are also great gifts, like fair trade scarves, organic cotton baby blankets, and beach towels or organic cotton bath towels from Gaiam. - Most resourceful
Banana fiber paper turns wasted bark from banana production into a decorative eco-wrapping option. Or opt for tree-less sources of paper, such as 100% recycled paper printed with soy-based inks. Or try fabric wraps from wrapnatural.com. - Closest to nature
Some of the best decorations for your gifts can be found in backyards, beaches and fields. Sprigs of berries, branches, shells and pinecones are naturally beautiful and don't require any manufacturing at all, just a short hike. (Check with authorities before taking pinecones or other specimens from state or national forests or parks.) Or try Real Goods' biodegradable Seed Gift Wrap that's embedded with wildflower seeds. Instead of tossing or recycling it after gifts are opened, just plant it in your garden! There's no waste … just beautiful blossoms that make this wrapping paper a gift in itself. - Recycling-friendliest
Avoid sticky situations at your recycling facility by wrapping your gifts without conventional — often petroleum-based — tape. Not all curbside programs accept wrapping paper. But if yours does, it should be tape-free. Try opting out of tape by making tightly creased folds as you wrap, securing it by tying up the package tightly (in two directions) with natural twine or wool yarn that can be reused. - Most frugal
Why spend a dime on wrapping when you already have what you need? Newspaper might have a reputation for saying "cheapskate," so get a little creative. Use anything from paper bags to leftover wallpaper, and cut out images from magazines, comics, children's drawings or old greeting cards to give your package an artistic flair. - Most interactive
If necessity is the mother of invention, competition is the sister of connection! Challenge your family to a little friendly competition — come up with the most inventive, resourceful, brilliant wrapping paper alternative using natural, reusable, recycled or repurposed raw materials. Then before present-opening commences, take a vote on the best idea. Award the winner a white-elephant gift, an extra pecan pie to take home, a spa massage, a restaurant gift card ... use your imagination! The experience will add to the great memories you create together this holiday.
Below are some tips from TreeHugger & Slate Magazine's "Green Challenge" that will help you in greening your holidays a bit more. Also, check out our "How to Green Your Gifts" guide for even more pointers.
- When shopping online or by mail order, consolidate your orders into as few shipments as possible.
- Consider the benefits of buying locally made goods, which aren't transported over long distances to get to you. Or could you buy antiques as presents? They're all about recycling and reuse.
- Could you reduce the number of holiday shopping trips you make, to save on gas? Could you bring reusable shopping bags? Most paper bags are made from virgin paper. Plastic ones are less CO2 intensive to make, but they're still made with petroleum and take hundreds of years to decompose in the landfill.
- If you're sending gifts by mail, choose small, light packages, which take up less space and fuel than big, heavy ones.
- Wrapping paper—usually made from virgin materials—is a large part of the holiday-waste stream. And if it's shiny or sparkly, it can't even be recycled. If every household wrapped three gifts in recycled materials (reused maps or cloth make great trimmings), we'd save reams and reams of paper. Other alternatives include buying gift-wrap made from recycled paper or hemp and flax. While you're at it, try Sellotape, which is made from biodegradable plant cellulose.
- Every year, 2.65 billion holiday cards are sold in the United States. If you're buying, choose cards made from recycled paper and avoid the shiny can't-recycle kind. Even better is to send e-cards. And recycle the non-shiny cards you receive.
- A deluge of catalogs has probably already descended upon your mailbox. It takes 14 million trees to produce the mail-order books we receive annually. And along with direct mailings, catalogs account for more than 4 million tons of CO2-emitting landfill mass. Encourage the catalogs you like to use recycled paper and get off the mailing lists of those you don't want.
- Christmas trees are a topic of much environmentalist debate. Fake trees are reusable but are made from petroleum-derived sources and often shipped from abroad. Real trees, for their part, are typically sprayed with lots of pesticides. And new research shows that pine-tree farms capture less CO2 than the hardwood species they're displacing in some parts of the country. A better choice may be to purchase a live, potted tree, which can be planted outside after the holidays. Evergreen varieties such as pine, spruce, and fir work well in many regions.
- Skip the tinsel and other decorations made from fossil-fuel-intensive plastics.
- If you're decorating with candles, choose the ones made from soy wax or beeswax. Both are renewable resources, as opposed to regular paraffin candles, which are made from petroleum.
- For holiday parties, rent real plates, glasses, and silverware (or use your own) instead of using the disposable kind.
- Consider staying close to home rather than blowing your CO2 budget on high-emissions travel to faraway places.
More ideas can be found here.
