A Season for Giving, Not for Discarding

• Holiday Waste Facts
• No-Waste Gift-Giving Ideas
• No-Waste Gift-Wrapping, Gift-Giving Ideas
• More Waste Reduction with Wrapping, Packaging, Greeting Cards

Holiday Waste Facts

• An estimated 2.6 billion holiday cards are sold each year in the United States, enough to fill a football field 10 stories high.
• More household waste is produced between Thanksgiving and New Year’s than any other time of the year--about six million tons of added waste nationwide.
• Half of the paper consumed in the U.S. every year is used to wrap and decorate consumer products.
• Going to grandma’s house for Christmas dinner? A reduction of one gallon of gasoline consumed each holiday season by every U.S. household would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1 million tons.
• About 40 percent of all battery sales occur during the holiday season. Consider purchasing rechargeable batteries instead of single-use household batteries. In 2006 alone, more than 40 billion single-use batteries were sold worldwide.
• Headed out to the mall for some holiday shopping? Take along a reusable shopping bag and you’ll help reduce the number of single-use, disposable plastic bags distributed each year in California by retailers.
• Consider buying food and holiday snacks in bulk to reduce packaging waste. But be careful about unused leftover food--it’s estimated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that nearly 95 billion pounds of edible food, or 27 percent of the U.S. food supply, end up being wasted each year.

No-Waste Gift-Giving Ideas

• Look for locally grown products for your holiday meal – it’s estimated that the ingredients for the average U.S. meal travel 1,200 miles by the time they are served at your dinner table. Buying locally grown food is better for the environment. Choosing food products that are in season, and not flown in from a tropical climate, has a lower impact on climate change. Consider products from a local farmers’ market. Find a listing of Certified California-Grown Farmers’ Markets.
• Remember to compost all of the fruit and vegetable peelings from preparation of your Christmas dinner.
• Consider a living Christmas tree or an artificial Christmas tree this year. Every year, more than 40,000 tons of used Christmas trees are discarded for recycling/disposal in California. Nationwide, it’s estimated that 30 million used Christmas trees end up in landfills.
• Check the earth911.com website for a list of sites in your community where Christmas trees can be recycled. Innovative uses for discarded Christmas trees include: mulch for water conservation and weed control; erosion or dust control on hiking trails and bridle paths; additives for composting; or fuel sources in biomass cogeneration power plants.
• Reuse branches from your Christmas tree to make colorful holiday wreaths.
• Outgrown toys, clothes and furniture may be donated to charitable groups like Goodwill Industries, The Salvation Army, American Cancer Society, or Volunteers of America. Many local charities operate thrift stores and are always looking for donated items.
• Check with local postal shipping stores to see if they will accept foam peanuts for recycling. Call “The Peanut Hotline” at 800-828-2214 to find the nearest dealer.
• Recycle your broken or burned-out holiday lights. Mail them to Christmas Light Source Recycling Program, 1923 6th Ave., Ft. Worth, Texas 76110. The bulbs will be recycled, and proceeds will be used to purchase books for the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. You’ll also get a coupon to save 10 percent on a future order of replacement bulbs.

No-Waste Gift-Wrapping, Gift-Giving Ideas

• Shop for recycled-content holiday wrapping paper, or wrapping paper sold by charity groups raising funds to preserve rain forests.
• Salvation Army and Goodwill thrift shops often have good prices on leftover holiday wrapping paper.
• Save used gift wrapping paper and reuse it next year.
• Make your own gift wrap from butcher paper, reused brown paper bags, newspapers, and newspaper comics pages.
  Christmas-theme fabric, with Velcro strips attached, can become reusable holiday wrap.
• Instead of purchasing gifts, donate to a charity in the gift recipient’s name. Each dollar sent to AmericanForests.org will allow two new seedlings to be planted in environmentally sensitive areas scorched by recent wildfires.
• Separate the pine needles from the branches of your Christmas tree and pack them into sacks to create tree-scented sachet bags.
• Discarded cell phones may be donated to your local Domestic Violence Programs.
• Overwhelmed with holiday catalogs received in the mail? You can request to have your name/address removed from mailing lists by contacting the Direct Marketing Association. A token $1 fee removes your name/address for up to three years.
• Sprayed-on artificial snow can be made from environmentally harmful components and can hinder the ability to recycle your Christmas tree after the holidays. For more Earth-friendly artificial snow, sprinkle on some baking powder.
  
  

More Waste Reduction with Wrapping, Packaging, Greeting Cards

• If you have Internet access, consider sending electronic Christmas cards this year. Check the selection at commercial sites like hallmark.com, bluemountain.com, or 123christmascards.com. You can also check charitable support groups like care2.com, or conservation groups like The Nature Conservancy.
• Use pinking shears to cut up old Christmas cards into gift tags for next year’s presents.
• Purchase gift bags from your local dollar stores or charity thrift shops and reuse them each year.
• Used, but attractive, gift baskets are often offered at local thrift shops.
• Consider giving gift cards this year – most retailers, many restaurant chains and even major amusement parks offer them.
• Never burn Christmas trees or holiday wrapping paper in a fireplace or wood stove.
• Recycle cotton or cotton-blend fabric remnants into napkins. Sew hems or add a trim such as rickrack.
• Use an old white bedsheet or a washable plastic tablecloth (with the white fuzzy side up) instead of purchasing paper tablecloths for your holiday meal tables.
• Used Christmas cards, especially those with large pictures to cut out, can be used as tree decorations. Just put a hole at the top of the card and knot a piece of string or lace through the hole to hang on next year’s Christmas tree, door handles, etc.
• Consider these alternate uses for your old Christmas cards: Bookmarks, gift tags, greeting cards, ornaments, place mats, or as decorations on storage boxes.
• Donate your old Christmas cards to a nursery or day care center for their arts and crafts work.

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