Celebrate a
While Christmas is considered the most magical, wonderful time of year, it?s also commonly criticized as the most wasteful season. Throughout the Christmas season everyone buys more, eats more and throws more away. In the US alone more than 300,000 tons of Christmas garbage is dumped into landfills over the holidays. On top of pollution and global warming, this puts added stress on our planet and makes our environment a little less friendly to live in.
By making you Christmas even a little more environmentally friendly, you?ll save some stress to the planet and save yourself some money. The easiest way to celebrate a ?green? Christmas, is to do less: buy less; decorate less; use less. Here are a few ways you can cut down on your holiday consumption to help lighten the environmental load on our planet.
? Christmas lights drain a lot of energy and can be expensive. A single string can use up to 100 watts of energy. Keeping your lights on for extended periods of time can add more than $100 to your December hydro bill. You can avoid all this spending by simply eliminating lights from your Christmas display ? or using fewer of them! Replace your traditional bulbs with LED lights to lessen the cost of your Christmas lighting, too.
? Shorten your Christmas list and only buy gifts for people who are truly special to you. Rather than buying your loved ones a gift, host a party. Be the person who brings everyone together and you?ll be at the top of everyone?s list.
? If you don?t want to throw a get-together, make donations to environmental charities in your friends? names or ?buy? them an acre of rainforest. The money you spend goes towards the protection and maintenance of ecologically significant areas.
? If you have to buy them something, make sure your gift is environmentally friendly. Buy locally to lessen the environmental impacts of manufacturing and shipping. Avoid anything that is over packaged or causes waste through its use. When you shop, take your own reusable bag and try to do all of your shopping in one place to avoid using too much fuel driving from place to place.
? Showing your holiday spirit with pretty packages and decorations is a popular tradition. Be a trendsetter and focus your decorations on reducing and reusing. Give reusable bags or wrap a gift in another gift like a t-shirt or scarf. Put fewer decorations up and choose ones that are reusable and don?t require power. Live decorations like evergreen boughs and holly are also great because they add scent to your holiday décor and can be composted after the holidays.
? You can also create less waste by making things yourself and reusing your holiday trimmings. Make your own wrapping paper and cards and make sure to unwrap your gifts carefully so you can reuse the paper. An even better way to save is to avoid wrapping gifts in paper at all.
? Take care in storing your decorations so that they survive year after year and you don?t have to throw them out or buy new ones. If you have to get rid of something, make an effort to recycle.
In the end, what costs both you and the environment is consuming without conserving. By simply reducing what you use over the holidays, even a little bit, you can lessen the waste that is left over from Christmas and help make our world a cleaner, healthier place to live.
Catherine Spelling absolutely loves spending Christmas with family and friends. When she is not counting down the days until Christmas, she writes for christmaslightsanddecorations.com ? an online resource for things relating to Christmas and decorations, with information on decorations for Christmas, pre lit Christmas trees and more.
Catherine Spelling absolutely loves spending Christmas with family and friends. When she is not counting down the days until Christmas, she writes for christmaslightsanddecorations.com ? an online resource for things relating to Christmas and decorations, with information on decorations for Christmas, pre lit Christmas trees and more.
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