Time - How to Have a Green Christmas
Filed under: Earth 911 - December 18, 2006
HIGHLIGHT: Christmas may be the most wonderful time of the year, but it’s also the most wasteful. Here’s how you can be kind to the environment and still celebrate in style
Maryanne Murray Buechner
Time
December 18, 2006
U.S. Edition
LIGHTS
Choose LEDs (light-emitting diodes) instead of incandescent bulbs to decorate your tree and home. They’re more ex-pensive but last much longer and use 80% to 90% less power than conventional mini-bulbs. LEDs stay cool to the touch, so they won’t singe the tree–or your child’s fingers. Brookstone.com’s oversize LEDs–$10 per 12-ft. strand–look just like the lights Dad used to put up.
TREES
Buy a potted or balled Christmas tree (roots still attached) so you can replant it in the backyard or donate it to the parks department. Living ChristmasTrees.org has lots of advice for do-it-yourselfers; it also “rents” living trees to residents of Portland, Ore., for $75 each. If you get a cut tree, recycle it; search Earth911.org for programs in your city.
CANDLES
Another way to conserve electricity is to turn off the lights and burn candles instead. Choose soy, vegetable wax or beeswax–all renewable, biodegradable materials–over paraffin-wax candles, which are petroleum based. Big Dipper Wax Works’ 100% beeswax candles run $10 to $24 at 3rliving.com.
ORNAMENTS
Artist Jeff Clapp uses oxygen canisters discarded on Mount Everest to make pricey bells and bowls. But he uses the leftover aluminum shavings to fill tree ornaments that someone might actually buy (Everest balls are $48 for four at Eco-Artware.com). Or save money and hang household items–Barbie accessories, Pez dispensers–with hemp twine.
GIVING
Do the folks on your list really need more stuff? If not, skip the store-bought presents and give a home-cooked gourmet meal instead, or donate to a charity in their name. Oxfamamerica.org invites donors to “buy,” for example, a camel ($175), cow ($75) or sheep ($45) as a way of supporting its programs in developing countries. For more ways to give, go to treehugger.com.
GIFT WRAP
Nobody will notice that you wrapped your gifts in plain paper if you add a pretty bow on top. For a vintage look, Danny Seo, author of Simply Green Giving, recommends using old VHS and cassette tape (both curl nicely on the edge of scissors), old Christmas lights, tape measures–anything, really, that’s long enough to tie around a box. Find more ideas at idealbite.com.