Holiday Gifts That Say "Green" and Save Green
Environmentally conscious holiday gifts are hot, smart, and garnering lots of attention this year. With so many earth-friendly holiday gifts from which to choose, there's something for everyone on your holiday gift list. Buy green and save green this holiday season.
Chicago, IL (PRWEB) December 4, 2006 -- "Green" holiday gifts are finding their way onto Santa's list and the lists of many consumers this holiday season. And the time couldn't be more right.
While holiday gifts, decorations, wrapping paper, and greeting cards all spread a great deal of cheer, they also take a tremendous toll on the environment. Between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, for example, Americans produce an additional 5 million tons of trash, generated from holiday gift buying, packaging, wrapping, and other related activities.
According to the National Retail Federation, American consumers will spend an average of $791.10 on holiday gifts this year, up more than $50 from 2005, and for a total of more than $457 billion. Making at least some of those holiday gifts "green" could be a gift to the environment as well as to the recipients of those gifts and the givers as well.
Just a few of the many "green" holiday gift ideas include:
- Gift cards. These can be purchased for a specific department or grocery store or gift item, or for services, such as auto repairs, music lessons, cooking classes, or a massage.
- Gift of time. Such gifts are especially meaningful for anyone who can use maintenance or personal services, such as lawn mowing, attic cleaning, window weatherproofing, grocery shopping, or babysitting.
- Tickets or memberships. One-time or season tickets to concerts, movies, sporting events, theater performances, or gallery shows make great gifts.
- Buy holiday gifts made from recycled materials and/or that support the environment. Read product labels to identify those holiday gifts that contain recycled materials.
- Choose holiday gifts that are made locally. This saves on transportation costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
- Give homemade gifts. Fresh baked goods, candies, handcrafted items, or personal scrapbook can mean much more than a mass-produced item.
- Living gifts. Potted plants, bird seed and a bird feeder, and flower bulbs are gifts that keep on giving.
- Gifts that promote sustainability. Consider giving a solar-charged lamp, a hand-cranked radio, rechargeable batteries and charger, or a solar oven.
What about the waste generated by gift wrap, ribbons, and holiday cards? Approximately 1.9 billion holiday cards are sent each year in the United States, enough to fill a football field up to ten stories high and requiring the destruction of about 300,000 trees. And if every family in the US reused just two feet of holiday ribbon, the 38,000 miles of ribbon saved could circle the globe.
Consider alternatives to traditional gift wrap and cards:
- Make the gift wrap part of the gift. Wrap a doll in a blanket; hide kitchen gifts in kitchen towels; put your gift in a canvas tote--which can be used for shopping trips in the new year!
- Don't wrap large gifts; just tie a recycled greeting card to the present and it's ready to go!
- Use Christmas stockings for small gifts. Reuse the stockings year after year.
- Create your own wrapping paper using recycled brown paper bags. Kids love to decorate them! Or use old maps or pictures from calenders or magazines.
- Send e-cards. There are many free e-cards on the Internet.
This holiday gift season can be a true season of giving when you give back to the planet as well as to your family and friends. You can learn about more environmentally conscious holiday gift ideas when you visit Charity Guide's website at http://www.charityguide.org/volunteer/fifteen/holiday-gifts.htm. Exchange environmentally conscious holidays gifts and expand the cheer you spread this year.
About Charity Guide
Charity Guide is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to promoting flexible volunteerism, by inspiring and facilitating acts of kindness. CharityGuide.org features volunteer service projects that can be accomplished in 15 minutes, a few hours or during volunteer vacations. Causes supported include: animal welfare, children's issues, community development, environmental protection, health & safety, poverty & homelessness, and random acts of kindness.
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