Ideas To Make Your Holiday Greener

This year more than ever, the holidays are a time to reflect and rejoice the simpler things in life. In this economy, many families are asking themselves how they can simplify some of their holiday traditions. They want solutions that require less preparation and stress, less money spent, and also less garbage in our landfills:

Give Gifts of Time or Service
Gift cards are a good way to guarantee the gift recipient gets to pick out something they actually want and will use. Or if you really want to avoid the waste that “stuff” creates (see newdream.org for tips on reducing your overall consumption), opt for something more creative like a gift card for a local restaurant or music concert. Finally, consider the gift of your time. Handmade coupons for car washing, baby-sitting, etc. offer something valuable to your family and friends while saving your holiday budget as well.

Use Our Reusable Gift Wrap
To reduce the mountain of paper, tissue and bows that go in your family’s trash can each year reuse your gift wrap. Fabricwrapper.com's Holiday Line offers a beautiful selection of reusable gift-wrap for the holidays. Founder Stephanie Lancaster, a mother of two, comments, “Many families are exchanging reusable gift-wrap year after year; reducing their gift wrap budget and carbon footprint at the same time”. The Sierra Club points out that if every American family wrapped just three gifts this year in reusable gift wrap it would save enough paper to fill 45,000 football fields. The site carries the signature Fabricwrapper for boxes and gift cards in addition to fabric gift bags and furoshiki, all made in the USA. The company belongs to 1% for the Planet, donating one percent of all sales to environmental non-profit groups.

Compost/ Recycle Holiday Waste
More than 10 million Christmas trees will end up in a landfill this year. Don’t let your tree be one of those sent to a garbage dump - compost it instead. Also, don’t forget the mounds of kitchen scraps from Christmas dinner or the uneaten latkes after lighting the menorah. There are plenty of opportunities during the holidays to compost. Think of the wonderful planting soil you will create for spring. And keep in mind that the biggest composting and recycling opportunities are at holiday parties, when large numbers of partygoers create large amounts of trash.

Party Responsibly
If you are hosting a holiday party this year, consider washable rather than disposable tableware and linens, and be aware that “less is more” when it comes to cheap party favors and decorations that will end up being thrown away. Send an “evite” rather than mailing invitations. Also, be aware of the food you are serving. Pre-prepared foods may seem simple, but they come at a high cost to the planet. Serving fresh local, organic food whenever possible will taste and feel better. To reduce costs, serve more foods that are lower on the food chain and stay away from costly meats. Or consider reducing the guest list. Any party that is obligatory rather than fun shouldn’t be on your radar. Remember to simplify and focus on the friendship of the people you are inviting. After all, that is what the holidays should be about!

One Piece Fabricwrapper is so Easy to use!

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Click here to check out unique and beautiful gift-wrap! OK, you guys know I don't "advertise" much on my sustainability blog, but you have got to check out the new arrivals we have for the holidays! They are awesome, and as usual, 1% of all sales go to environmental non-profits.

Organizing Your Electronics/ Chargers

I know you have one too... that "junk drawer" that barely closes, the place you put everything in your house that does not have a permanent home.

We are electronic junkies and lately I realized that half of our junk drawer was full of chargers. All of our devices seem to come with a cord or battery re-charger... the cell phones, the camera, the portable DVD, the video recorder, the GPS, the ipod... you get the picture.

I went on-line to find a solution (yes, I know most people get these organizational urges in January but I am procrastinating on real work!). All of the solutions I found alarmed me because they keep the cords plugged in ALL THE TIME. Have you seen these boxes for your chargers? The cord is hidden, plugged in, and whenever you need it, it is ready. Sounds great, but many cords still pull energy when plugged in, even if they are not attached to the device.

So, the picture above is my solution, and an inexpensive one too! These organizers can be found at any retail giant or organizer store. They are normally used for shoes or accessories, and they hang on the back of any closet door. We keep ours in a closet near the kitchen where all of our chargers are convenient to the whole family. I labeled all of the slots (OK, I am revealing my geek nature, I do own a label maker). We love it!

Top Five Reasons to Give Up Bottled Water

Top Five Reasons to Give Up Bottled Water from www.newdream.org
My material is usually original, but I think this is important enough to duplicate! New American Dream is the non-profit that we (www.fabricwrapper.com) support as members of 1% For The Planet.

1. Disposable plastic water bottles are not meant for multiple uses.The #1 polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is fine for a single use, but reuse can lead to bacterial growth and leaching of dangerous chemicals.

2. Bottled water is full of oil. Making bottles to meet Americans’ demand for bottled water requires more than 17 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 cars for a year. To put it another way, the entire energy costs of the lifecycle of a bottle of water is equivalent, on average, to filling up a quarter of each bottle with oil. (Pacific Institute)

3. Bottled water is expensive! Drinking the recommended daily amount of water using bottled water can cost an average of $1,400 per year; drinking the same amount from the tap costs around 49 cents for the year. (NY Times)

4. Your tap water is fine to drink. Tap water is more highly regulated than bottled water and over 90 percent of water systems meet EPA's standards for tap water quality. (If the taste or color is a little off from your tap, your pipes are probably at fault—a simple filtration system should do the trick to take both aesthetic problems away.)

5. At least 40 percent of bottled water is tap water anyway. That’s right: you are paying a huge premium on water that you could have just gotten from your tap in the first place. (Natural Resources Defense Council) You probably like tap water more than bottled water, too!

Back to School Tips

It is time for the kids to say goodbye to lazy days at the pool, and prepare for back to school!

Just a couple of tips for preparations:

(1) School Shopping: Re-use anything you have in your house to save time, money and resources. We all have pencils in every "junk" drawer... don't buy what you already have! When it is time to buy new, though, The Ideal Bite has some great tips on eco-friendly school supplies. And for waste-free lunches, try the great selection at reusablebags.com

(2) Green Space: Does your school need a free garden? Apply at the The Children's Nature Institute for a grant!

(3) Biking and Walking: For those of you that saw my new year's eve entry in January, you know that I got the kids to school on their bikes 50% of the time last year. This year I am moving my goal to 75% of the time. This means I will be rolling to the school in gloves and hats as soon as December arrives, so wish me luck! Join me in walking and biking to school when possible.

Add your own tips in the comments section. Wishing everyone a wonderful school year!

Overwhelmed with Green Choices?

Last week I hosted a bookclub on Michael Pollan's In Defense Of Food. Many of us had seen the movie Food, Inc and we had a great discussion debating the merits of various points from both the movie and book. I thought the best one was Pollan's advice to stick to foods that have 5 ingredients or less. Simple advice and yet so hard to do in today's grocery stores. So, Pollan adds, get out of the grocery store. That is more difficult than it seems. For instance, In my household we get our CSA box only 10 weeks out of the year, our cow-pooling is great but we don't like a lot of red meat to begin with, and our garden plot is tiny due to our small yard at the beach. The nearest farmer's market is a 45 minute drive. Small changes do help, but to totally change our western diet we need big changes at the grocery store too.

One of the most interesting comments came from one of the moms in the group who had led the conversation from healthy food to healthy household cleaners and said a friend emailed her about the dangers of today's sunscreens right after she just replaced all of her plastic with BPA-free bottles. Whew, take a breath, right? That's exactly how she felt... she needed a break. She said, "I could not even open the email because I just could not take any more". A lot of people agreed. The changes many of us are making to lead a more healthy and sustainable lifestyle feel good. But they can also be expensive and exhausting!

The fact is that we do make choices every day that affect our health and the planet. But overhauling your lifestyle in one day may not be possible. Make good sustainable choices. Buy reusable rather than disposable items. Read what the experts have to say and then use your own instincts. I try to remember, as Pollan points out, that "the experts" have been very wrong in the past. But our instincts are usually right.

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