Green Living Library
  • Welcome
  • Blog
  • The Sustainable Life Shop
    • 16 oz. Stainless Steel Insulated Drinking Cup
    • 4 Piece Silicone Bowl Covers
    • Silicone Storage Bags with Slide Closure
    • 10 piece set of bamboo handled toothbrushes with nylon bristles.
    • Dental Floss Holder with Compostable Dental Floss
    • 33 yards Eco-Friendly Dental Floss Refills
    • Stainless Steel Drinking Straws with Cleaning Brush
    • Teak Wood Cooking Utensils
    • Plant Based Scrub Sponge 8 Pack
  • Green Living with a Kid
  • Lifestyle
    • All Natural Health
    • Books Worth Reading
    • Composting
    • Green Documentaries
    • Green Transportation
    • Green Landscaping
    • Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
  • Food
    • Organic Farming
    • Composting
    • Extra Resources
    • Food Storage and Preservation
    • Gardening >
      • Companion Planting
      • Seed Starting
      • Weed Control
    • Soil >
      • Soil Health
      • Soil Science
      • Soil Building
      • Soil Tests
  • Home Building
    • Adobe and Earthbag Building
    • Cob
    • Log
    • Rammed Earth
    • Straw Bales
    • Heating and Cooling >
      • Home Heating External Links
  • Frugal Living Library
  • Renewable Energy
    • Solar Power
  • About
  • Contact
  • Green Living Photo Gallery
  • Product
  • Welcome
  • Blog
  • The Sustainable Life Shop
    • 16 oz. Stainless Steel Insulated Drinking Cup
    • 4 Piece Silicone Bowl Covers
    • Silicone Storage Bags with Slide Closure
    • 10 piece set of bamboo handled toothbrushes with nylon bristles.
    • Dental Floss Holder with Compostable Dental Floss
    • 33 yards Eco-Friendly Dental Floss Refills
    • Stainless Steel Drinking Straws with Cleaning Brush
    • Teak Wood Cooking Utensils
    • Plant Based Scrub Sponge 8 Pack
  • Green Living with a Kid
  • Lifestyle
    • All Natural Health
    • Books Worth Reading
    • Composting
    • Green Documentaries
    • Green Transportation
    • Green Landscaping
    • Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
  • Food
    • Organic Farming
    • Composting
    • Extra Resources
    • Food Storage and Preservation
    • Gardening >
      • Companion Planting
      • Seed Starting
      • Weed Control
    • Soil >
      • Soil Health
      • Soil Science
      • Soil Building
      • Soil Tests
  • Home Building
    • Adobe and Earthbag Building
    • Cob
    • Log
    • Rammed Earth
    • Straw Bales
    • Heating and Cooling >
      • Home Heating External Links
  • Frugal Living Library
  • Renewable Energy
    • Solar Power
  • About
  • Contact
  • Green Living Photo Gallery
  • Product

Going Green for Christmas Part 1

12/24/2016

0 Comments

 
Christmas is a wonderful time of year full of cheer, good humor and a deluge of commercial purchasing that comes in all sorts of one time use packaging.  As great as Christmas is it comes with all sorts of pitfalls that can make it difficult to be green and environmentally friendly as you want.  To that end I am reposting a couple of articles about how to avoid some of the pitfalls of this time of year.
Wrapping Up Christmas Presents the Green Way

So here we are again at another Christmas season. A season know for its family gatherings, good food and general merriment all around. But it is also a time of tremendous waste as we wrap up all the presents we get people in all sorts of pretty paper, bows and ribbon. The problem with all that nice wrapping paper is that goes right into the trash after it is ripped off the presents.  For those of you like me the thought of spending money on what is essentially a throw away product is difficult. It exemplifies exactly what is wrong with our consumer, materialistic throw it away society.

But people expect to have wrapped presents and like many things during the holiday season
its not optional. While wrapping presents may not be optional what you wrap them in is. There are lots of options out there for those that are trying to be more green.

Old Wrapping Paper

This particular tactic really only works you have people like my father opening presents. He very carefully cuts the tape holding the paper and pulls it off in all one piece. But lets face it how many people do you know that do that? There is also the option of recycled wrapping paper which can be purchased online or from stores.

Newspaper

My personal favorite is the use of old newspaper. The paper is nice and soft and easy to fold and tape. It can make some parcels interesting to wrap depending on their size as newspapers come in only a few sizes. I would always challenge myself to find a interesting story that would catch the eye of the person unwrapping it. Plus you can always expect a few "so you used newspaper to wrap your present" comments which make a great launch platform for a green living rant.  The nice thing about newspaper is that once all the tape is peeled from it you can throw it in the compost bin or add it to your garden as mulch.

Create Something New

If you have kids or your a kid at heart and you want to get into the holiday spirit in a good way wrap the
presents in craft paper. By wrapping the presents in a plain brown or white craft paper you can then draw and color them with holiday themes. The wrapping itself would make a great home made present and you can simply burn,recycle or compost the paper afterwords. If you do chose to compost them make sure what was used to color them is biodegradable or otherwise Earth friendly.

Other materials that could be used include fabric from thrift stores, natural materials like bark or leaves or whatever you want I suppose. The options are endless for someone with a little imagination and the Earth is plentiful with natural materials.

Please take some time this holiday season to think of the Earth and how you can be a better steward of the land. If we all are more aware of our actions we could make a impact for the betterment of the Earth this holiday season.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Hello my name is Josh Larson and I am the creator of the Green Living Library.  Here on the blog you will find updates to content found in the Green Living Library as well as stories from those living the sustainable life already.  

    Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    January 2018
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015

    Categories

    All
    Climate Change
    Companion Planting
    Composting
    Cover Crops
    DIY
    Documentaries
    Financial Independence
    FIRE
    Food Forests
    Food Preservation
    Gardening
    GMO
    Green Cleaning
    Health
    Heating
    Home Heating
    Homesteading
    Human Population
    Industrial Agriculture
    Mulch
    Organic Food
    Organic Matter
    Passive Cooling
    Permaculture
    Plastic
    Pollution
    Recycling
    Renewable Energy
    Reuse
    Seed Starting
    Soil
    Soil Compaction
    Solar
    Solar Power
    Species Extinction
    Tillage
    Trees
    Trellis
    Tweaks
    Urban Agriculture
    Windbreaks

Photos used under Creative Commons from andrew_ross, Scrap Pile, USDA NRCS South Dakota, mikecogh, mikecogh, rmkoske, UnitedSoybeanBoard, naturalflow, Rennett Stowe