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This holiday season, green is definitely hotter than red!! Though holidays ring the bells to welcome a happy and prosperous year, unfortunately, there is a cause for alarm- it might turn out to be an environmentalist's worst nightmare as an estimated 3 million tonnes of garbage is destined to end up as mere waste. Christmas provides us a nice opportunity to Green our minds and try to be more eco-conscious!
Follow these simple tips to have a Green Christmas this year and share some love with our planet too
- Green Christmas Tree: Real trees are the more eco-friendly choice. Either buy a real tree or get a recycled one. Most local councils offer recycling facilities. LivingChristmasTrees.org provides lot of advice on how to care and keep living trees. You can either order from FreshChristmastree.com or get local sellers if they have an organic farm supplier.
- Low Energy LED Lights: LED lights use less energy to light up your holidays. They use up to 90% less energy than traditional holiday bulbs and last up to 100,000 hours when used indoors.
- Plastic Ain't My Bag: Take your own re-usable shopping bag when you do your Christmas shopping. You can find some of ours HERE .
- Using Family Items as Decorative: Use recycled decorations. You can use a child's first shoe as an ornament , juice cartons to make your tree sparkle or hair ribbons to decorate wreathes.
- Clothes: Be sure to donate your old clothes to a local charity shop when you get a new wardrobe.
- Defrost your freezer before Christmas: It will work more efficiently and create more space to store leftover food so that it doesn't go waste.
- Organic Turkey: Buy an organic turkey. Ten million turkeys are consumed every Christmas; so try to ensure it has been reared in humane conditions.
- Travel Wisely: Car pool; when shopping, use your bike and when you fly, buy green credits when you purchase your ticket.
- Choice of Candles: Try using candles made from soy, beeswax or natural vegetable-based wax over paraffin candles as they are made from petroleum residue and are no good for your health or for the environment.
- Wrapping Paper: In the US, the annual trash from gift wrap and shopping bags totals over 4 million tons. In Canada, the annual waste from gift wraps and shopping bags equals about 54,500 tons. If everyone wrapped just three gifts in reused paper or fabric gift bags, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 hockey rinks. You can buy recycled wrapping paper from Natural Collection, or use colorful pages from magazines.
- Green Holiday Food: Visit farmer’s markets and food fairs and have a locally sourced eco-friendly Christmas dinner, avoiding supermarkets where possible. Recycle all those glass bottles and cans at the party.
- Christmas Cards: Try using cards made from recycled or handmade paper. Also, you can consider sending holiday cards from sites like Americangreetings.com and Blue Mountain.
- Holiday Albums: Try creating albums in photo-sharing sites like Flickr or Photobucket .
- Green Books as Gift: Educate on how to go green. Great Lakes Water Wars, Better Basics for the Home are a couple books for Green reading.
- Recycle Your Old Cellphone: If you are getting a new cellphone this Christmas, be sure to recycle the old phone to ward off hazardous elements like mercury, cadmium and lead from polluting the environment.
- Try sending SMS or text messages to friends this Christmas.
Here’s wishing you GREENER Christmas this year! |
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