Going Green for Christmas Part 1

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.