Christmas Waste Reduction and Green Gifts Guide
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Hark, the Herald Angels Green, Glory to Recycling!

People traditionally produce a lot more trash during the Holiday season, but it dosen't have to be that way. Check out the ideas below for waste reduction, reuse, and recycling.

Zero to Less Waste Gift Ideas

• Everyone loves food! How about baking cookies for all the neighbors, or presenting a good friend or family member with a certificate for a home cooked meal that you make for them in their home?
• Nonmaterial gifts can make a big impression. Give tickets to movies, concerts, or plays. Bring someone to a special event (excellent for older people with limited mobility and too much stuff).
• Make a charitable donation in someone’s name.
• When you do go shopping, bring your own tote bag so that you don’t use a new paper or plastic bag for your purchased item.
• Buy durable, useful, thoughtful gifts!
• Buy items made from reused, recycled, or waste -reducing materials. Search on the internet for these items.

Creative Wrapping

• Wrap gifts in a fabric, drawstring bag.
• Buy and reuse gift bags that don't create wrapping waste.
• For boxes with removable lids (like shoe boxes), wrap both the box and the lid so that the paper is not torn upon opening, and the box can be reused by the recipient. Use ribbon the close the box instead of stick-on bows that tear paper.
• Save used gift wrap and reuse it next year.
• Decorate an unwrapped gift with reused ribbons or dried grasses and flowers.
• Use a knit hat to wrap a gift, or a pretty dishtowel, a flour sack, or a bandana.
• Use old calendar photos to wrap smaller gifts, or how about an old map? Use blueprints, grocery bags that you’ve decorated with fruit or vegetable prints, or the comics section.
• Shipping a fragile gift? Instead of Styrofoam packing peanuts, use unbuttered popcorn.
• Got peanuts with your present this year? Drop off clean styrofoam peanuts and bubblewrap for reuse at mailing companies.

Can wrapping paper be recycled?

Wrapping paper is fun, but it is generally produced with a lot chemical dyes that contribute to water pollution. Although you can put some wrapping paper in the recycling bin, the heavy inks downgrade the quality of the paper, and processors can only feed it into the mix in small quantities, if at all. Use these guidelines for to choose paper that is recyclable.

Choose these types of paper:

• Light colored and with white backgrounds. Less ink and non-shiney surfaces make it easier to recycle.
• Look for post consumer recycled content paper.
• Paper only-no metallic or plastic elements.
• When recycling, please remove all tape and tags.

Types of wrapping that are definitely not recyclable:

• Foil and metallic papers, or paper with metallic pieces.
• Plastic wrapping, or wrap with plastic pieces.
• Paper with non-paper ingredients.
  

Recycling Packaging

Almost all packing material can be recycled, but you must separate it, and put the loose parts in the recycling bin. If you throw a cardboard box with plastic bags and/or styrofoam inside in the recycling bin, it will probably end up in the trash. These items can be recycled or reused:

Cardboard and Paperboard Boxes: All boxes are recyclable, even if they have tape on them. Pull all non-cardboard items out of the box.

Plastic Bags: All those little parts bags can be brought to the plastic bag recycling stations at grocery and drug stores. Please do not place these in the recycling bins.

Plastic Pillows: These air filled pockets are increasingly popular for mail order. Either reuse them to mail a package, or pop the pillows and bring to grocery stores with your regular plastic bags for recycling.

Styrofoam Peanuts and Bubble wrap: Put clean peanuts in a plastic bag, and remove tape from large, intact pieces of bubble wrap. Drop them off at mailing companies where they will be reused.

Styrofoam Blocks: These are not recyclable. Please put them in the trash.

Fiber Blocks (molded pulp): These look like egg-carton fiber and are used instead of Styrofoam. They are recyclable.

Christmas Tree Recycling

Consider buying a live tree. They’re fresh, they smell great, and they can be planted outside after the season or kept indoors in a large pot and used over and over again every holiday season. Buy one that is appropriate to the local climate (read the care tag on the tree). If you do buy a cut tree, remember these points when it’s time to send it on its way:

• Flocked trees can not be recycled! (Who needs fake snow anyway? Isn't the warm climate the reason why we all live here?)
• Remove all tinsel, lights, ornaments, and the tree stand before recycling.
• If you have a greenwaste bin, put the tree next to it. If not, bring the tree to the curb and call your hauler to tell them it is there Allied/BFI at 965-5248 or MarBorg at 963-1852. Your hauler's name should be on the trash or recycling containers.
• You can also haul it to the South Coast Recycling and Transfer Station (the former dump) at no cost through January 19th. Hours are Mon-Sat 7:00-5:00, phone number is 681-4345.

Donating Party Leftovers

Do you have trays of food left over after office parties? Spread some holiday cheer by donating it to a homeless shelter.

For more excellent waste free holiday tips, see the “Use Less Stuff” website at: www.use-less-stuff.com. Select the “42 Ways to Trim Your Holiday Wasteline” link!