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Written by Joanna Hoang   
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Thursday, 16 December 2010

Holiday Gift Giving

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Now that Thanksgiving has past and we are well recovered from our food comas, it’s time to start thinking about your holiday gift-giving! When thinking of purchasing decorations and gifts this year try to be more environmentally responsible in what you choose to buy ☺

Gifts You Can Make:

Holiday Card—The first thing that should accompany every gift you give out this holiday season should be a personalized card with a heartfelt message. Personalize your card further by making the card yourself! Use old scraps of magazines, newspaper, and any other paper that you would otherwise toss away. It would give a nice touch to the card. In addition to your message, consider putting in a blurb encouraging your friend to be more eco conscious in the following year ☺

Service Coupons—On tiny slips of scrap paper you have lying around you can write small favors you would be willing to do for the person such as “one babysitting session,” “one pet-sitting session,” or “one grocery run.” Personalize them with tiny pictures and decorations! Or you can write more daring ones depending on who you are giving these coupons to. The recipient would be sure to appreciate these and actually use them unlike some trinkets that they will let pile up!

Gifts You Can Buy:

A Plant—By giving a potted plant of any type, be it flowers, trees, etc., you are encouraging your friend to be more in touch with nature and providing them with the potential for cleaner air to breathe ☺ If it is a plant that can bear fruit, it will show your friend the fruits of labor and nature! Should you gift your friend a plant with an invasive nature be sure to warn them to protect our local plants.

Plant-Trees.org—Plant a tree under someone else’s name.4 By planting a tree you are replacing our depleting trees in forests which will filter out the carbon dioxide in our air and provide us with more oxygen! You will also have the option of sending them a certificate!5


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Hydros Water Bottle with filter—Purchase your loved one a Hydros water bottle!6 By using these reusable, BPA-free water bottles they can save money and our planet instead of using disposable bottles! This specific bottle also filters your water, and for every Hydros bottle you purchase, a portion of the funds are donated to a clean water in Africa project in collaboration with Engineers Without Borders.7

Gifts that Give:

Kiva.org—Buy your friend or coworker a gift card from Kiva that allows them to make small loans to sustainable efforts of their choice in third world countries, and even now in the United States. When the loan is paid back they can loan it out again! It is a gift that just keeps giving.8

DonorsChoose.org—Likewise, a gift card from DonorsChoose can allow your close ones to donate money to classrooms to fund projects that teach young children to be more environmentally conscious.9 Teach them when they are young and they will grow up to change the world! Simply donate to any cause you choose or they choose in their name ☺

Of course the best gift that you can give anyone is the quality time that you are willing to spend with them. Have fun during the holidays eating your favorite foods with your close friends. Roast marshmallows over an open fire under the night sky. Perhaps share a cup of hot cocoa with them beside a cozy fireplace and exchange stories and laughs. For more eco-friendly holiday ideas, check out: "Green Your 2009 Holiday Season"

Happy Holidays everyone!

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1 http://www.thedailygreen.com/cm/thedailygreen/images/WT/christmas-tree-with-gifts-flipbook.jpg
2 http://choralicious.com/YRMblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/hanukkah_home.jpg
3 http://sp.life123.com/bm.pix/kwanzaa_traditions.s600x600.jpg
4 http://plant-trees.org/mMenu3.php
5 http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsArticles/Holiday-Time-Green-Gift-Ideas-for-the-Office.html
6 https://hydrosbottle.com/
7 https://hydrosbottle.com/gundom
8 http://www.kiva.org/about
9 http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/giftoptions.html




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Last Updated ( Thursday, 10 February 2011 )

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Green Facts

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

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  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

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  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

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  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

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