Eco-Friendly Christmas

“Going green” has become the chic new way to celebrate Mother Earth and what better time to honor her than during the holidays? Christmas, while sure to be a special time, can also be quite excessive and wasteful. Between the extra gas used driving to and from the mall and all that wrapping paper, your carbon footprint is likely to show up on Santa’s “Naughty List.”  Follow these simple, everyday changes before, during and after the holiday season.  You’re not only saving the planet, but saving money too – Hallelujah!

Pre – Christmas Tips:

•  When heading to a mall or grocery store to take care of some holiday shopping, call your friends and see if they would like to carpool.  The chances are that just about everyone you know needs to hit the stores.  Pile into one car and blast the Christmas tunes.


• Ditch the wrapping paper this year and get creative!  Try using newspaper, construction paper or even foil.  Gift bags are a wonderful alternative because they can be used again and again.  And if you’re feeling extra guilty over wasting paper, visit www.treegivers.com to plant a tree in your home state.

Christmas Day Tips:

• When it’s time to open presents, make sure to have 3 - 4 separate garbage bags on-hand.  One should be designated for paper (cards, envelopes, wrapping paper), one should be for plastic (most likely the packaging from toys or electronics), one for cardboard (break down gift boxes to save space and essentially use fewer trash bags) and lastly, one garbage bag for miscellaneous.


• To avoid wasting napkins or paper towels, use cloth (red and white striped are super festive) napkins when setting the dinner table.  Cloth napkins look nicer, each guest will have to keep track of his/her own and you can just toss them in the hamper after dinner.  Fancy and brilliant!

Post-Christmas Tips:

• It’s a sad day for everyone when you have to take down the Christmas tree – all those ornaments, all that time spent decorating and all those needles to be vacuumed.  Earth911.com allows you to type in your zip code and generates the nearest places to drop of your tree to be recycled.  If picking out the perfect tree was a family outing, make recycling your tree an equally important tradition!