Christmas really is the most wonderful time of the year! People are smiling and spending time with family, traditions create lasting memories, and a season of giving brings out the best in people. However, what are ways that we could make Christmas better? By making it more environmentally friendly! Here are 15 of our favorite tips for an eco-friendly Christmas!
So What Are 15 Tips For an Eco-Friendly Christmas?
- Find Used Items to Gift: New products are exciting, but have a high environmental cost. Additionally, there are plenty of amazing used alternatives for most gift items that reduce environmental impact.
- Choose to Buy Less: Often, we have plenty of items in our homes that go unused. Evaluating what you have and deciding if you need the items you are asking for can reduce waste, as well as keep unwanted clutter to pile up in your home
- Choose Sustainable Gift Wrap: The best way to wrap your gifts is not with wrapping paper; finding household products, such as newspaper or other materials helps to reduce the paper waste caused by wrapping paper.
- Buy Local: Buying products from a local business helps to lower the carbon footprint of the items you purchase, as well as helping to keep locally owned businesses open!
- Reuse carboard boxes: After a while, all those Amazon boxes can start piling up. While they can be recycled, finding clever uses for them through Pinterest and other places is a great way to keep them out of landfills
- Replace your Christmas lights with LED Lights: Most Christmas lights now use LED lights, which reduce electrical waste, but ensuring your old lights are replaced are an easy way to reduce your environmental impact.
- Purchase a Live Tree: While artificial trees can be used season after season, the plastics used to create them, as well as their landfill impacts are large. Additionally, people tend to throw them away regardless of their condition. Purchasing a live tree is a more environmentally sustainable option. This is due to the tree being recyclable as mulch, as well as contributing to cleaner air as it grows.
- Recycle What You Can: This year, separate out the paper, cardboard, and plastics that can be recycled as you open your gifts this year. Ensuring that your holiday waste is sustainably recycled helps reduce the environmental cost of the holiday.
- Try Homemade Cards: Instead of purchasing brand new Christmas cards every year, using up your old ones, as well as crafting handmade ones reduce your environmental impact.
- Reuse Christmas Decorations: Those Target sales can make it temping to buy the newest Christmas decorations, reusing your old ones helps reduce environmental costs.
- Reduce Your Waste After Christmas Dinner: When you are at home cooking that delicious meal, try to make sure every part of your meal is consumed. Properly storing left overs, or giving them away helps to make sure they are not wasted
- Consume Less Meat Over the Holliday: Meat, especially red meat, has big environmental impacts due to the process from pasture to kitchen. By reducing the amount of entrees that require meat or dairy products, you can reduce your environmental impact.
- Find Natural Candles: One of the best parts of the holidays are the smells. From food cooking, to winter scents, smells help bring back memories and put people in the holliday spirit. However candles, if mass produced, can be harmful to the environment! Using natural candles that are locally made help to reduce the impact.
- Setting timers on Christmas lights: Instead of trying to remember to plug and unplug your Christmas lights, setting them up on a timer helps reduce your electric bill, as well as environmental cost.
- Hire the right team to responsibly remove your junk: Instead of letting everything pile up and clutter your home, hire the right team to remove your items! Fire Dawgs is able to help you with your junk removal! We even do our best to donate, reuse, or recycle your unwanted items, so you can feel good knowing your items are going to their appropriate homes!
Want a Free Estimate?
Our Office staff is standing by to help you have a more eco-friendly Christmas with our removal and recycling services! Give us a call at 1-800-211-3294 to get a firm, free, no obligation estimate today! Unable to call? Contact us online here and we will reach out to you! We hope you have a very Happy Holiday!