Good Green Habits

It’s estimated that Americans purchase nearly 30 million Christmas trees each year. Yes, trees do add a delicious fragrance and seasonal sparkle to your living room. However, if discarded in landfills after the holiday blitz, they also add needless waste to our planet’s growing mountains of trash. And, trees can’t even decompose in landfills because landfills don’t offer up enough oxygen. Gasp…what’s a tree to do?

Good Green Habits for Christmas Trees

Luckily, you can take one of the following eco steps to make sure your Christmas tree gets recycled into soil-enriching mulch─and keep it from clogging your local landfill.

• Use your garbage company’s Christmas tree recycling program─call them for a pickup schedule and details.
• Cut your tree into pieces and place in the green waste cart supplied by your garbage company for pickup on any service day. 
• Visit Earth911.com to find a nearby recycling location.
• Contact city or county offices to ask about tree recycling events offered in your community.

ECO IDEA:  Consider investing in a LIVING Christmas tree next year!

You can give yourself and the planet a nifty gift this holiday season by practicing eco-friendly habits and choosing LED Christmas lights. LED lights are inexpensive (often less than $10 for a 50-bulb strand), sturdy, glow brightly and most importantly they use very little electricity.

Good Green Habits for Christmas Lights

• Decorate one outdoor area (your porch, a tree or plant) instead of your entire home.
• Turn on lights only during key viewing hours.
• Use a timer so you don’t forget to turn them off.
• Choose LED Christmas lights instead of incandescent lights since they:
  • reduce energy consumption by as much as 90% compared to traditional incandescent bulbs.
  • produce bright light for up to 20 holiday seasons.
  • generate almost no heat, reducing fire potential.

PG&E in California says switching to LED lights pays off. The following comparison is based on an annual use of 45 days/5 hours daily at a 2009 residential rate of $0.156 kWh.

Qty. of Lights	Type of Light	Power demand per light (watts)	Annual Energy Usage (kWh)	Average Annual Operating Costs
300	Large Incandescent	7.00	472.5	$73.71
300	Mini Incandescent	0.45	30.38	$4.74
300	LED Lights	0.43	2.90	$0.45

NOTE: If LED lights aren’t in your budget right now, remember to look for after-holiday sales.

STAFF CHAT:  My favorite LED bulb color is red and least favorite is blue. And, I’m jazzed because although my family spent $60 on LED lighting, we expect to save at least $200 on our electricity bill this holiday season!

Whenever you select an environmentally-friendly gift for your family, friends and workmates, you help to create a more healthful and joyful future for both them and the planet.

Good Green Habits for Gifts

Here are ideas to make your gift-giving greener:

• Choose solar powered presents, such as flashlights, lamps, laptop chargers, and radios.
• Give organic and/or Fair Trade candy, coffee, food, and wine.
• Look for items made from natural or recycled materials, such as jewelry, glassware, lamps, vases and works of art.
• Purchase gifts that produce less waste, such as movie/concert tickets, museum or park passes and gift certificates.  
• Select gifts that are durable, reusable, repairable, refillable, and/or recyclable. 
• Avoid gifts that use batteries—but if you can’t, make sure they have power adapters (electrical plugs) and include rechargeable batteries with a charger. 
• Stay away from overly packaged products.