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The winter holidays are a time to treat yourself to some tasty holiday foods or splurge on a present for a loved one. Environmentalism and holiday cheer can go hand-in-hand. You can easily incorporate green practices into your purchases and festivities. Below are 15 tips you can use to make your holiday season environmentally-friendly. Pick one or more of these tips and you will be on your way to ringing in a green year!

 

Conserve Energy:

1. Lower your thermostat and put on a festive holiday sweater, even host an ugly sweater party to get everyone in the energy-saving spirit!
2. Purchase gifts that are energy efficient. Click here to find TVs, computers, and holiday lights that are ENERGY STAR certified.  
3. Carpool to holiday parties and on shopping trips. Not only will you save gas and money, but you will enjoy merry company.

Rethink, Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle:

1. Choose gifts, cards, and wrapping paper that contain recycled content.
2. Purchase durable and long-lasting gifts that have minimal packaging. 
3. BYOB! Bring your own bag when you shop for food and presents.
4. Choose reusable silverware, plates, and glasses at your holiday parties. Be so bold as to bring your own utensils, plates, and cups to others' holiday parties. Your host may even thank you for cutting down on their cleanup time!
5. Reuse newspaper, paper grocery bags, tissue paper, and cloth as wrapping paper.
6. Make your own holiday decorations from past cards, family photos, tissue paper, calendars, and other items destined for the landfill.
7. Make mulch from your Christmas trees and wreaths to cut down on irrigation.
8. If you lack a mulcher, recycle your Christmas trees. Visit Waste Management, EDCO, or the City of San Diego's websites for tree recycling information in your service area.
9. Compost food scraps and holiday decorations (when appropriate).

Get creative with the ways you green your holiday! Making your holiday season more eco-friendly should be fun. And remember to spread the joy!

 

Sources

1 U.S Environmental Protection Agency. (2011, December 7). Winter Tips. U.S Environmental Protection Agency Web site.

 

2 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2011, November 16). Green Your Holiday Scene. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Web site.

 

3 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2011, September 7). Have a Greener Holiday! U.S Environmental Protection Agency Web site.

 

4 U.S. Environmental Proection Agency. (2011, July 19). Questions About Your Community: What Can I Do to Help the Environment When I Travel for the Holidays or an Upcoming Meeting? U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Web site. 

 

 

 

 

Gardeners love compost! A material made of yard trimmings and food waste, compost provides nutrients and beneficial micro-organisms to soil virtually for free. Compost restores lackluster soil and supports plant growth by supplying key nutrients including nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Compost definitely has benefits to individual people in gardens and agricultural farms, but we cannot ignore the larger impact that compost has on the environment and the planet as a whole. 

 

According to the EPA, Americans produced 243 million tons of municipal solid waste in 2009, or about 4.3 pounds of waste per person per day (1).  Organic materials are the largest component of municipal solid waste. Paper and cardboard account for twenty-eight percent of this number and yard trimmings along with food scraps account for another twenty-eight percent (2). 

 

Not only does this enormous amount of waste pose a threat to landfill capacities and open space, but decomposing organic material in anaerobic conditions produces methane, a greenhouse gas twenty-one times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. In 2009, landfills in the U.S. produced 12.5 million metric tons of methane - almost twice the emissions of coal mining (3).  

 

According to the EPA, municipal solid waste landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States, accounting for seventeen percent of all methane emissions in 2009 (3). This huge amount of greenhouse gas being emitted into the air is responsible for absorbing radiation in the atmosphere, changing the climate, and severely effecting ecosystems. 

 

In a landfill, organic materials are bagged in plastic and buried in layers of trash. Useful, recyclable materials are contaminated with regular waste and take up significant amounts of space in landfills. Decomposition occurs very slowly and the anaerobic conditions of landfills result in the large production of methane.

 

Composting has the potential to solve the problems of organic waste in landfills. A properly managed compost pile goes through an aerobic decomposition process. Compost allows materials to break down aerobically, producing carbon dioxide and beneficial nutrients for the soil instead of methane. Even though carbon dioxide is still produced in the process, it is a much less potent greenhouse gas.  Application of compost also reduces the need for irrigation, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers, some of which are sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

 

By composting organic material, landfill space is preserved, methane production is avoided, and natural soil amendment is created. So, not only does compost have benefits for our backyard gardens, but it plays a huge role in diverting waste, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and mitigating climate change. 

 

Sources 

1 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Wastes: Non-Hazardous Waste - Municipal Solid Waste." U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Web Site.  

 

2 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2009." U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Web Site. 

 

3 Misra, R.V., Roy, R.N., Hiraoka, H. "On-farm composting methods." U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation Web Site.  

 

4 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Methane - Sources and Emissions." U.S Environmental Protection Agency Web Site.