Between Thanksgiving and New 12 months’s Day, the quantity of family rubbish in the US will increase by 25 p.c, from 4 million tons to 5 million tons, together with present wrapping and product packaging. We additionally use extra electrical energy simply on vacation lights than some international locations use in a complete 12 months! All this waste is admittedly pointless.
Listed below are twelve eco-friendly vacation suggestions that can assist you cut back your environmental footprint this vacation season.
1. Make Your Personal Wrapping Paper (or Go With out)
Earth911 estimates that roughly 4.6 million kilos of wrapping paper is produced within the U.S. annually, and that about 2.3 million pounds—about half of it—ends up in landfills. And on prime of all that, most wrapping paper and ribbon is produced in Asian sweatshops, and shipped from 1000’s of miles away, giving wrapping paper a fairly heavy environmental footprint!
A standard mistake many individuals make across the holidays is placing all their wrapping paper, tissue, ribbons, and so forth. into the recycling bin. Sadly, in case your wrapping paper is metallic, has foil or glitter decorations on it, or has a texture to it, it isn’t recyclable. Together with it in your recycling bin with different paper merchandise might make a complete load unrecyclable.
What a disgrace a lot water, oil and bushes are wasted yearly solely to provide one thing that exists solely for use as soon as, torn off after which thrown within the rubbish. As a substitute of store-bought wrapping paper, get artistic and take a look at:
- white or brown craft paper (Have your children adorn it for a private contact!)
- outdated maps
- the comics part of your native newspaper
- a fairly scarf or bandana, furoshiki-style
- a helpful fabric merchandise that may be a present in and of itself
- recycled fabric luggage from Amazon or different retailers
You possibly can even go with out wrapping your items altogether. A Small Footprint Family Facebook fan just lately instructed me that at her residence, she hides all of the unwrapped presents round the home, and holds a vacation scavenger hunt for the children to seek out them. What a enjoyable, intelligent, low-waste concept!
However in case you should purchase wrapping paper, Wrappily affords pretty vacation wrapping papers constructed from 100% recyclable and compostable newsprint. You may also get vacation playing cards (and different playing cards, too!) constructed from 100% recycled paper at Paper Culture.
2. Purchase Power-Saving LED Vacation Lights
Because of expertise, now you can adorn your own home with LED lights that use 80 percent less energy than conventional holiday lights, which is able to enormously cut back your vacation electrical energy invoice in case you’re working a number of strands of lights for a number of hours a day. (Add a timer, and also you’ll save much more!)
Not solely do LED vacation lights price pennies to run in comparison with incandescent vacation lights, additionally they have the next benefits:
- LEDs are a lot cooler than incandescent lights, decreasing the chance of fireside or burnt fingers. Not like incandescents, they get extra environment friendly as temperatures drop.
- LEDs are made with epoxy lenses, not glass, that are rather more immune to breakage. With care, LED vacation lights can final for as many as 50,000 hours of use. And when one bulb does exit, the remainder of the string stays lit!
- Not like incandescent vacation lights, you may usually join as much as 25 strings of LED lights end-to-end with out overloading a wall socket. And since LEDs use a lot much less energy than filament lights, there are varieties that may be run on batteries or small photo voltaic panels, saving you much more cash.
In keeping with the U.S. Department of Energy, if everybody changed their typical vacation gentle strings with LEDs, the vitality price financial savings could be $850 million annually, and 9.9 billion kilos of annual greenhouse fuel emission could be prevented. The financial savings could be equal to the emissions from 940,000 automobiles!
LED lights are inexpensive and accessible online and at many main retailers. And, in case you put your lights on a timer, it can save you much more cash!
Why Are Lead and PVC Utilized in String Lights?
Each lead and PVC are utilized in virtually all string lights (LED and incandescent) to insulate the wiring, retard fires and reduce the cracking and disintegrating that comes with age. String lights can even comprise antimony, arsenic or cadmium as insulators and fireplace retardants, too—all poisonous heavy metals you don’t need to contact or inhale.
Whereas these toxins are inconceivable to completely keep away from, you can discover much less poisonous string lights. Search for string lights which might be RoHS compliant and free from Prop 65 warning labels.
With a purpose to be RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) compliant, a product has to have lower than 1000 ppm (.1%) of lead in it. RoHS compliant lights should even have low ranges of cadmium, mercury and phthalates. So though RoHS compliant lights usually are not fully lead- and toxin-free, they often are a lot safer in comparison with different, non-RoHS manufacturers.
For those who can’t discover RoHS compliant, low-toxin lights, be sure you maintain your string lights away from youngsters and pets, put on gloves, and wash your arms completely after putting in them.
3. Add Natural & Native Meals to Your Vacation Feast
Make your vacation feast much more vibrant by supporting local household farmers and meals producers who sustainably produce meat, greens and seasonal treats in your space.
A neighborhood, sustainably farmed roast or ham is a lot better for the atmosphere than manufacturing facility farm meat produced 1,000 miles away. Not solely does native, natural meals style higher, however you’ll even be doing all of your half on your group and the planet too.
Here’s where to find an organic turkey or humane ham and local vegetables on your vacation dinner.
4. Get a Chemical-Free Tree
As folks study extra about dwelling inexperienced and wholesome, demand is on the rise for Christmas bushes that aren’t coated in chemical substances. Right here’s what it’s essential know:
Stay Christmas Bushes
Studies have shown that minimize or potted reside bushes are a a lot greener alternative than a synthetic tree. Residing Christmas bushes present wildlife habitat, protect soil, moderate floods and drought, filter air and sequester carbon whereas they develop, which takes 6-8 years. Tree farms additionally present native jobs and good livelihood in rural communities.
However sadly, some growers can use as much as 40 totally different pesticides, in addition to chemical colorants on their bushes! The excellent news is that there at the moment are a lot of tree-farms that promote pesticide-free bushes, so ask your native Christmas tree vendor, or search for an organic tree farm close to you.
The most eco-friendly vacation tree possibility is a potted, native tree that you would be able to plant after the vacation season. You’ll find reside, potted Christmas bushes in any native nursery in your space. In California, New York, and the United Kingdom, you may even hire a potted Christmas tree, and they’re going to deal with it for you between seasons!
If getting a potted tree will not be doable, cut back your carbon footprint by buying a domestically grown minimize tree, and ensuring it will get mulched or in any other case recycled—reasonably than put into the landfill—when the vacation is over.
Synthetic Christmas Bushes
Synthetic bushes can final a few years if nicely cared for, which appears to make them a extra sustainable alternative, however they do have some very important drawbacks. For instance, you would need to maintain your plastic Christmas tree for a minimum of 10 years for it to have the identical carbon influence as utilizing an actual tree annually.
Synthetic bushes additionally pose a giant hazard to the atmosphere, to staff and to customers. Plastic Christmas bushes are made largely of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a non-renewable petroleum product. As well as, massive quantities of fossil fuels are required to fabricate and transport the plastic bushes (normally from Asia), including extra greenhouse gases to the environment.
PVC additionally comprises phthalates, which accumulate in physique tissues, and are linked to liver, lung and reproductive organ harm in mammals. Poisonous heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tin are sometimes used within the manufacturing of PVC, and can even result in environmental and health-related issues together with nervous system harm, significantly in youngsters.
As a result of synthetic bushes are flammable, many firms additionally apply flame retardants to them, which may trigger reproductive toxicity, neurological toxicity, endocrine disruption, and most cancers. In actual fact, there are such a lot of toxins in synthetic Christmas bushes, that the labels warn you to keep away from inhaling or touching any mud that will fall from the branches!
Synthetic bushes can’t be recycled on the finish of their life, in order that they have to be landfilled or incinerated. Within the landfill, the non-biodegradable supplies don’t actually ever break down, whereas incineration causes plastics resembling PVC to launch dioxins and different carcinogens into the air.
So, in case you do select a synthetic tree, be sure you take excellent care of it so you should use it for a minimum of 10 years, and be sure you deal with it fastidiously to keep away from being uncovered to its poisonous mud.
You may additionally contemplate different bushes, like book trees, wine bottle trees, or trees made from ornaments or lights.
5. Recycle Your Christmas Tree
Every year, 10 million minimize Christmas bushes find yourself within the landfill, the place they produce methane, a potent greenhouse fuel.
For those who can’t chip your tree into mulch, minimize it into firewood, use it in crafts, compost it, or feed it to your goats, you can nonetheless recycle your tree.
Over 4,000 U.S. cities alone supply packages to recycle your tree into mulch or wooden chips. Some cities even use your outdated bushes to do necessary environmental tasks like streambank or dune stabilization. In some cities, you may even donate your tree to the zoo to feed the animals there.
Go to the National Christmas Tree Association or Earth911 to discover a Christmas tree recycling program close to you.
6. Recycle Your Previous Cellphone or Pill
Getting a brand new cellular phone or pill for the vacations? Undecided what to do with the outdated one? Every year, 130 million cell telephones are thrown out, weighing roughly 65,000 tons. Recycling your outdated cellphone prevents hazardous parts like mercury, cadmium and lead from ending up in our landfills.
Now, you may drop off that outdated cellphone or pill at any Staples retailer, take it to your native e-waste recycling middle, ship it to BigSky Recycling, or probably commerce it in together with your cellphone provider or one of many many buyback programs on-line.
7. Offset Your Vacation Journey
For those who or your family members are touring greater than 100 miles this vacation season, attempt to cut back air journey at any time when doable, and contemplate offsetting the fossil gasoline air pollution generated by your journey, irrespective of the way you journey. These firms can assist you get bushes planted to scale back your influence.
- Terrapass – Offers carbon offsets for flying, driving, and so forth.
- CarbonFund – Offers a wide range of carbon offset tasks to select from.
- Sustainable Travel – Offers a wide range of methods to offset carbon emissions
You may also cut back your air journey footprint by flying like a N.E.R.D. When reserving your flight, select:
- New. Newer plane just like the A320neo or Boeing 787-8 have 15% much less gasoline burn than older designs.
- Financial system. Extra seats, and fewer unfilled seats, means decrease gasoline burn per passenger.
- Common. Regional jets and really massive plane with 4 engines are gasoline intensive. Common, medium-sized jets are usually extra gasoline environment friendly.
- Direct. Fly direct, with out layovers, the place doable to scale back gasoline burn as a result of circuitous routes.
8. Donate Your Time or Cash to an Environmental Trigger
Get into the vacation spirit by volunteering! There are numerous methods to assist enhance your group—and the planet—from cleansing up a neighborhood river to serving to internal metropolis children expertise the outside for the primary time.
Organizations and charities all around the nation want your time and/or your cash to make a distinction, so you may have an important influence for a small quantity of effort.
Listed below are my three favourite environmental charities to donate to throughout the vacation season:
- OneTreePlanted – One Tree Planted is a non-profit that allows people, companies and colleges to assist with reforestation tasks all around the world. They use your donation to empower native communities to develop and plant the saplings wanted to restore forests after fires and floods, create jobs, construct communities, and shield habitat for wildlife.
- Charity:Water – charity: water is a non-profit group that brings clear and protected ingesting water to the 785 million folks worldwide that lack primary entry to it. 100% of public donations go on to fund clear water tasks.
- Savory Institute – The Savory Institute teaches Holistic Deliberate Grazing to farmers, ranchers, and pastoralist communities throughout the globe in an effort to facilitate large-scale regeneration of the world’s prairies and grasslands by way of biomimicry and holistic administration.
9. Make Handcrafts & DIY Presents
There are such a lot of methods to scale back your consumption influence when giving vacation items. DIY items may be as a lot enjoyable to make and provides as to obtain. There are tons of concepts on Pinterest, however you’re actually solely restricted by your creativeness.
Some home made present concepts embody:
10. Give Experiential Presents
One of the memorable items to present is the present of an expertise. By giving items that may be skilled, you may reduce wrapping and procuring, and nonetheless give them one thing they’ll always remember.
Something that permits the one you love to spend high quality time experiencing one thing enjoyable, new or fascinating will make a present positive to be cherished for years to come back.
Some concepts for experiential items:
- tickets to a ball sport, play or live performance
- a visit someplace fascinating
- a 12 months of zoo or museum membership
- passes to a neighborhood theme or water-park
- classes, courses or a workshop
- a bucket-list expertise, like sky-diving or whale watching
- a particular home made meal, therapeutic massage or “spa day” with you
Experiential items are extremely private, and are sometimes greatest loved when shared between each the giver and the receiver, so you may construct lasting recollections collectively.
11. Buy Eco-Pleasant & Domestically Made Presents
For those who select to buy retail items, select merchandise that are available minimal packaging, are constructed from sustainable supplies, and may be simply recycled. You may also select items that assist folks reside extra sustainably, like a compost bin or a reusable water bottle.
Associated: 24 Unique Gifts for Gardeners
Store Native
Now greater than ever, it’s necessary to assist your native small companies and retailers by purchasing for items in your hometown. This helps your native Most important Avenue to outlive, and offers native jobs. For those who’re unsure what to get, buy present certificates from space outlets, eating places and meals purveyors.
Every time you may, attempt to consolidate journeys so you employ much less fuel throughout your vacation procuring.
Eco-Pleasant On-line Procuring
On-line procuring reduces the period of time you spend driving your automotive, however the carbon footprint from transporting all these purchases may be excessive. As well as, the packaging may be an unlimited waste.
In keeping with a study by MIT that in contrast brick-and-mortar procuring to on-line procuring, shopping for on-line sometimes has a decrease carbon footprint than driving round—besides when web shoppers select 2-day or sooner supply.
Every time doable, plan forward to keep away from 2-day or rush delivery. Choosing a slower delivery time offers the shipper time to schedule deliveries extra effectively. Attempt to consolidate shipments of a number of gadgets when you may, and waive signature necessities (or use Amazon locker) to stop a number of supply makes an attempt.
There are a lot of on-line outlets focusing on sustainable and handcrafted items, from arts & crafts to clothes to family items to effective jewellery, together with:
12. Stuff Stockings With Yummy, Pure Treats
Stocking stuffers are usually small, plastic trinkets that find yourself damaged, misplaced or within the rubbish by the top of January. As a substitute, honor an old style custom and fill your stockings with yummy treats like dried fruit, nuts, clementines, sweet, and homemade holiday cookies.
How are you being inexperienced this vacation season?
We Want You a Peaceable Vacation and an Considerable New 12 months!
—The Small Footprint Household
This text was excerpted from my ebook Sustainability Starts at Home – How to Save Money While Saving the Planet. For extra money-saving, planet-friendly suggestions, decide up a duplicate at this time!
Additionally featured on NPR’s Here and Now Show with Robin Young
