Good Green Habits for Cards and Gifts

• Purchase a card made from recycled paper.
• Write a poem or note in a card you have made using scrap paper and/or parts of old cards.
• Give yummy organic chocolate.
• E-mail a card.
• Bake and package goodies in reusable/recyclable containers.
• Give a potted plant, flower, or tree that can be planted in spring.
• Purchase a gift that produces less waste, such as a movie/concert ticket or gift certificate.

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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!

Good Green Habits for Christmas Lights

• Decorate one outdoor area (your porch, a tree or plant) with lights 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 2010 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 them at after-holiday sales.

STAFF CHAT:  LED lights are looking better than ever.  My favorite LED bulb color is red and least favorite is blue. And, I’m jazzed because although my family spent $90 on LED lighting, we expect to save at least $250 on our electricity bill this holiday season!

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Good Green Habits for Eco-Friendly Gift Wrap

You can help generate less waste during the holiday season with these easy green steps: 

• Cover gifts with felt and reuse the felt next year─this works especially well with odd sized gifts!
• Wrap gifts in old maps, colorful newspaper comics, posters, reusable gift bags, and decorated paper bags, cardboard boxes or baskets.
• Decorate them with reusable ribbons, twine or bows—and after opening presents, save them for next year.
• Buy low-cost rolls of leftover wrapping paper from Goodwill or the Salvation Army.
• Purchase gift wrap made from 100% recycled paper or paper made tree-free fibers such as hemp.  
• Make gift tags from last year’s holiday cards. 

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. 

Good Green Habits for Shopping

Adopt these eco-friendly shopping and lifestyle habits:

• Bring your reusable bags since they often hold more stuff and have comfortable handles.
• Patronize local stores to save gas and support local merchants
• Shop online to save even more gas—but expect the best deals on Cyber Monday.
• Purchase items that don’t require a lot of extra packaging and are made from recycled or eco-friendly materials (such as organic cotton and hemp).
• Skip drive-through fast food at lunchtime to keep your idling car from polluting the air.
• Use your own refillable travel cup for on-the-go beverages.

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