Between Thanksgiving and New Yr’s Day, the quantity of family rubbish in the US will increase by 25 %, 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 whole yr! All this waste is admittedly pointless.
Listed below are twelve eco-friendly vacation suggestions that will help 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. every year, and that about 2.3 million pounds—about half of it—ends up in landfills. And on high 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 reasonably heavy environmental footprint!
A typical mistake many individuals make across the holidays is placing all their wrapping paper, tissue, ribbons, and so on. 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’s not recyclable. Together with it in your recycling bin with different paper merchandise may make a whole load unrecyclable.
What a disgrace a lot water, oil and timber are wasted yearly solely to supply 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 inventive and check out:
- white or brown craft paper (Have your youngsters beautify it for a private contact!)
- previous maps
- the comics part of your native newspaper
- a reasonably 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 presents altogether. A Small Footprint Family Facebook fan not too long ago informed 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 thought!
However in the event you should purchase wrapping paper, Wrappily gives beautiful vacation wrapping papers constructed from 100% recyclable and compostable newsprint. You can even get vacation playing cards (and different playing cards, too!) constructed from 100% recycled paper at Paper Culture.
2. Purchase Vitality-Saving LED Vacation Lights
Due to know-how, now you can beautify your own home with LED lights that use 80 percent less energy than conventional holiday lights, which is able to drastically cut back your vacation electrical energy invoice in the event 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, lowering the chance of fireplace 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 possibly can typically 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 line with the U.S. Department of Energy, if everybody changed their typical vacation gentle strings with LEDs, the vitality price financial savings can be $850 million every year, and 9.9 billion kilos of annual greenhouse gasoline emission can be prevented. The financial savings can be equal to the emissions from 940,000 automobiles!
LED lights are inexpensive and accessible online and at many main retailers. And, in the event 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 may also include 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 not possible to thoroughly keep away from, you can discover much less poisonous string lights. Search for string lights which can be RoHS compliant and free from Prop 65 warning labels.
So as 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 are usually not fully lead- and toxin-free, they often are a lot safer in comparison with different, non-RoHS manufacturers.
In case you can’t discover RoHS compliant, low-toxin lights, remember to preserve your string lights away from youngsters and pets, put on gloves, and wash your arms totally 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.
An area, sustainably farmed roast or ham is significantly better for the setting than manufacturing unit farm meat produced 1,000 miles away. Not solely does native, natural meals style higher, however you’ll even be doing all your half in your neighborhood and the planet too.
Here’s where to find an organic turkey or humane ham and local vegetables in your vacation dinner.
4. Get a Chemical-Free Tree
As individuals be taught extra about dwelling inexperienced and wholesome, demand is on the rise for Christmas timber that aren’t lined in chemical substances. Right here’s what you could know:
Stay Christmas Timber
Studies have shown that minimize or potted reside timber are a a lot greener selection than a synthetic tree. Residing Christmas timber 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 completely different pesticides, in addition to chemical colorants on their timber! The excellent news is that there are actually quite a lot of tree-farms that promote pesticide-free timber, so ask your native Christmas tree vendor, or search for an organic tree farm close to you.
The most eco-friendly vacation tree choice is a potted, native tree which you can plant after the vacation season. You will discover reside, potted Christmas timber in any native nursery in your space. In California, New York, and the United Kingdom, you possibly can even hire a potted Christmas tree, and they’re going to handle it for you between seasons!
If getting a potted tree shouldn’t be attainable, cut back your carbon footprint by buying a regionally grown minimize tree, and ensuring it will get mulched or in any other case recycled—relatively than put into the landfill—when the vacation is over.
Synthetic Christmas Timber
Synthetic timber can final a few years if effectively cared for, which appears to make them a extra sustainable selection, however they do have some very vital drawbacks. For instance, you would need to preserve your plastic Christmas tree for no less than 10 years for it to have the identical carbon influence as utilizing an actual tree every year.
Synthetic timber additionally pose an enormous hazard to the setting, to staff and to shoppers. Plastic Christmas timber are made principally of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a non-renewable petroleum product. As well as, giant quantities of fossil fuels are required to fabricate and transport the plastic timber (normally from Asia), including extra greenhouse gases to the ambiance.
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 usually used within the manufacturing of PVC, and may also result in environmental and health-related issues together with nervous system harm, notably in youngsters.
As a result of synthetic timber are flammable, many corporations 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 timber, that the labels warn you to keep away from inhaling or touching any mud that will fall from the branches!
Synthetic timber 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 comparable to PVC to launch dioxins and different carcinogens into the air.
So, in the event you do select a synthetic tree, be sure you take excellent care of it so you should utilize it for no less than 10 years, and remember to deal with it rigorously to keep away from being uncovered to its poisonous mud.
You may additionally think about different timber, like book trees, wine bottle trees, or trees made from ornaments or lights.
5. Recycle Your Christmas Tree
Annually, 10 million minimize Christmas timber find yourself within the landfill, the place they produce methane, a potent greenhouse gasoline.
In case you 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 applications to recycle your tree into mulch or wooden chips. Some cities even use your previous timber to do necessary environmental tasks like streambank or dune stabilization. In some cities, you possibly can 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 Outdated Cellphone or Pill
Getting a brand new mobile phone or pill for the vacations? Unsure what to do with the previous one? Annually, 130 million cell telephones are thrown out, weighing roughly 65,000 tons. Recycling your previous telephone prevents hazardous components like mercury, cadmium and lead from ending up in our landfills.
Now, you possibly can drop off that previous telephone or pill at any Staples retailer, take it to your native e-waste recycling heart, ship it to BigSky Recycling, or presumably commerce it in together with your cellphone provider or one of many many buyback programs on-line.
7. Offset Your Vacation Journey
In case you or your family members are touring greater than 100 miles this vacation season, attempt to cut back air journey every time attainable, and think about offsetting the fossil gasoline air pollution generated by your journey, irrespective of the way you journey. These corporations might help you get timber planted to scale back your influence.
- Terrapass – Gives carbon offsets for flying, driving, and so on.
- CarbonFund – Gives a wide range of carbon offset tasks to select from.
- Sustainable Travel – Gives a wide range of methods to offset carbon emissions
You can even 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.
- Economic system. Extra seats, and fewer unfilled seats, means decrease gasoline burn per passenger.
- Common. Regional jets and really giant plane with 4 engines are gasoline intensive. Common, medium-sized jets are typically extra gasoline environment friendly.
- Direct. Fly direct, with out layovers, the place attainable to scale back gasoline burn on account 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 neighborhood—and the planet—from cleansing up a neighborhood river to serving to internal metropolis youngsters expertise the outside for the primary time.
Organizations and charities everywhere in the nation want your time and/or your cash to make a distinction, so you possibly can have an excellent influence for a small quantity of effort.
Listed below are my three favourite environmental charities to donate to through the vacation season:
- OneTreePlanted – One Tree Planted is a non-profit that permits people, companies and colleges to assist with reforestation tasks everywhere in 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 consuming water to the 785 million individuals 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 with the intention to facilitate large-scale regeneration of the world’s prairies and grasslands by 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 presents. DIY presents will be as a lot enjoyable to make and provides as to obtain. There are tons of concepts on Pinterest, however you might be actually solely restricted by your creativeness.
Some selfmade present concepts embody:
10. Give Experiential Presents
One of the crucial memorable presents to present is the present of an expertise. By giving presents that may be skilled, you possibly can decrease wrapping and buying, 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 presents:
- tickets to a ball sport, play or live performance
- a visit someplace fascinating
- a yr of zoo or museum membership
- passes to a neighborhood theme or water-park
- classes, lessons or a workshop
- a bucket-list expertise, like sky-diving or whale watching
- a particular selfmade meal, therapeutic massage or “spa day” with you
Experiential presents are extremely private, and are sometimes greatest loved when shared between each the giver and the receiver, so you possibly can construct lasting recollections collectively.
11. Buy Eco-Pleasant & Domestically Made Presents
In case you select to buy retail presents, select merchandise that are available minimal packaging, are constructed from sustainable supplies, and will be simply recycled. You can even select presents that assist individuals 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 help your native small companies and retailers by purchasing for presents in your hometown. This helps your native Most important Road to outlive, and gives native jobs. In case you’re unsure what to get, buy present certificates from space outlets, eating places and meals purveyors.
Each time you possibly can, attempt to consolidate journeys so you employ much less gasoline throughout your vacation buying.
Eco-Pleasant On-line Purchasing
On-line buying reduces the period of time you spend driving your automotive, however the carbon footprint from transporting all these purchases will be excessive. As well as, the packaging will be an unlimited waste.
In line with a study by MIT that in contrast brick-and-mortar buying to on-line buying, shopping for on-line usually has a decrease carbon footprint than driving round—besides when internet buyers select 2-day or sooner supply.
Each time attainable, plan forward to keep away from 2-day or rush delivery. Choosing a slower delivery time provides the shipper time to schedule deliveries extra effectively. Attempt to consolidate shipments of a number of gadgets when you possibly can, and waive signature necessities (or use Amazon locker) to stop a number of supply makes an attempt.
There are lots of on-line outlets specializing in sustainable and handcrafted presents, from arts & crafts to clothes to family items to nice jewellery, together with:
12. Stuff Stockings With Yummy, Pure Treats
Stocking stuffers are typically 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 Yr!
—The Small Footprint Household
This text was excerpted from my guide Sustainability Starts at Home – How to Save Money While Saving the Planet. For extra money-saving, planet-friendly suggestions, choose up a duplicate at the moment!
Additionally featured on NPR’s Here and Now Show with Robin Young
