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HOLIDAY WASTE PREVENTION TIPS
You may have heard many of these suggestions before but sometimes as we get wrapped up in the flurry of the season, we may forget the basics of reducing waste. Americans throw away 25 percent more trash during the holiday season. Here are a few tips that can be applied to family giving and celebrations, as well as workplace events. Gift Giving  Give nonmaterial gifts. Some unique ideas for Alaskans include cross-country ski lessons, an avalanche safety class, or a weekend at a local public-use cabin or yurt. Consider giving tickets to an event at the Center for Performing Arts or even a season ticket package; hockey tickets; tickets to a play at one of the small theater companies in town; a year-long membership to the Anchorage Museum of History and Art; zoo passes; a climbing gym membership; cooking classes; movie passes; restaurant gift certificates; or gift certificates for stores that you know they'll visit, like hardware stores or garden centers. Make your own gift certificates. Give services such as babysitting, lawn mowing, dishwashing, a trip to the recycling center or composting facility. Give consumables. Give candles, soap, homemade jams or cookies. Or invite someone over for a home-prepared meal.
Give durables. Choose well-made classic items, such as long-lasting toys, sports equipment, clothing, books, cooking or building tools, rather than cheap, breakable, trendy items. Also, think "repairable."
Give environmentally helpful gifts. Give canvas shopping bags, travel cups, garden hand tools, durable lunch bags, worm bins, compost bins, compost, gift certificates for nursery or nature excursions, cloth napkins and rings, a reusable lunch kit for the workplace.
Give gifts with a personal touch. Your own artwork, photographs, poems, craftwork, and/or a note expressing love and appreciation are always a big hit. Parents and grandparents, among others, usually prefer these gifts and keep them forever!
Give donations. Give money to a good cause that the other person cares about, in their name. Animal shelters, environmental organizations, food banks, literacy advocates, libraries, health organizations, shelters for teens and women, and arts organizations are just a few possibilities.
Start a new tradition. Pick one night a month that your family will donate time at a local shelter. Studies show that people who help others are healthier and happier. Collect for a charity. Choose a charity, such as the Food Bank or AWAIC, or ask about a needy family, and collect items for them. Non-perishable food items and household goods are especially needed during the holidays, as are gifts and warm clothes for children.
Holiday Parties
Cut the portions. When planning a holiday party for the workplace, be sure to consider how many people will really be participating, and what types of foods and beverages will be popular but also can be "recycled" if not eaten. At least 28 billion pounds of edible food are wasted each year in the U.S., or more than 100 pounds per person. Donate leftovers. If leftovers that are still edible, and coworkers have already taken their share for later, contact Bean's Café about dropping off the items for use. Serve sustainably. Even if your office typically uses reusable dishes and mugs for daily office lunch and coffee breaks, office parties tend to be that exception when the foam plates and plastic cups come out. Keep up your green leanings by using bioware for these events if you just don't have enough reusable dishware to go around. Several companies in Anchorage sell biodegradable plates, bowls, cups and even cutlery made from renewable products like potato starch and sugar cane wastes. Even if these items can't be composted in the end, you'll be supporting the use of renewable resources and reducing your carbon footprint. Rent reusables. Several party stores in Anchorage offer very reasonable rental prices for reusable glasses and plates for your holiday party. Just be sure to reserve them early during the busy holiday season. Renting dish and glassware may not be as expensive as you think, especially when you consider the cost of disposables and dealing with them as trash.
Turn down the heat. At home or if you have zoned heating in your workplace, turn down the heat when your guests arrive. You'll save energy while the extra body heat of the guests will warm up the room.
Recycle! Have recycling bins available for guests. You may have recycling bins in your home and your office, but are they available where you are hosting your party? If not, consider moving some from other locations or contact Green Star about borrowing bins through our Green Events program. Lights & Decorations  Use LED (light emitting diode) holiday lights. You'll reduce your energy consumption by 80-90% compared to using regular strings of lights. LED holiday lights also are made of unbreakable, flameproof epoxy plastic and contain no filament that can burn out or break. And they are much cooler than conventional bulbs, making them safer to use indoors and out.
Use timers. Both indoors and out, timers will help you reduce electricity use for your holiday lights. Be sure to adjust the timing periodically as our daylight hours shift. Timers are available at stores such as Spenard Builders Supply, Fred Meyer, Wal-Mart, The Home Depot, and Lowe's, among others.
Use reusable holiday decorations. You can store decorations until next year if they are in good shape rather than purchasing new decorations each year.
Decorate creatively. Use items that may be headed for the trash. One idea is making snowflakes from used paper. Snowflake-making is not just for kids. What better way to get an office full of Scrooges in the holiday spirit than a snowflake-making contest. Holiday Packing Materials
 In Alaska, the holidays mean boxes shipped in and out and around the State as far away families send each other gifts. With each gift usually comes packing material. What can you do with all that material?
Cardboard boxes. Reuse boxes to ship other gifts or items out again. Be sure to mark over all the old addresses and information and retape the seams. Or recycle the boxes at the Anchorage Recycling Center or landfill recycling drop-0ff area. Be sure to flatten your boxes when you recycle to be sure there's enough room in the bins for everyone's boxes.
Plastic "pillows" and bubble wrap. Both of these cushioning materials can be recycled with plastic bags and film at the Anchorage Recycling Center. Just puncture the pillows to release the air to save space. No need to pop all the bubbles (unless you really want to!!).
Brown kraft paper. Crumpled brown paper is a more environmentally friendly packing material. If it's not too crumpled, smooth it out and let the kids at it with a box of crayons. Or recycled it with corrugated cardboard (not with mixed paper).
Other paper. Any other papers can be recycled with mixed paper. Newspaper can be recycled separately in the newspaper bin. The separated newspaper supports Thermo-Kool of Alaska, a local business that uses newspaper to make several new products in Anchorage. Tissue papers are typically low-quality papers and shouldn't be recycled but very small quantities will not hurt.
Packing peanuts. Expanded polystyrene packing peanuts may be the most unwelcome item you find when you open your gifts and packages. It sometimes takes several people working together to pour them out into a large plastic bag, especially on cold, dry days when static cling takes over. Take your clean packing peanuts to any of the UPS Stores in the area, the Packaging Store on W. International Airport Rd., or The Mail Cache on Arctic Blvd.
Foam blocks. These are the big, formed pieces that typically come with computers and other electronics. Visit www.epsrecycling.org for information about expanded polystyrene (EPS) recycling availability. Several mail-back addresses are listed for the west coast.
Foam coolers and ice packs. Often you'll receive perishable items packed in foam coolers and cooled with ice packs. All of these are reusable! The coolers make great portable containers for giving your friends some of your summer salmon catch or fall moose meat. The ice packs can be laid flat in your garage freezer for use in these deliveries and since it's all free stuff, you don't have to worry about getting the coolers back. Just ask your friends to reuse it all too. |
Free Entry to Alaska Sealife Center -- through February 28, 2011
REAP Forum: Wind Power in Alaska from Fire Island to Kodiak -- December 7 
Christmas Tree Recycling -- December 28 through January 15
Timer Giveway -- January
Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT), a statewide environmental health and justice organization promoting the reduction of toxics, is now offering a green cleaning service to homes and businesses in the Anchorage area. The service is a mission-related business, which means that a key purpose is to inform people about safe alternatives to toxic cleaning products while offering a service to the community. 
At some point during the winter, about a quarter of Anchorage homeowners burn wood for ambience or to supplement their heating systems. While some types of heaters burn much more cleanly than others, efficient operation and use of dry fuel play an important role. Energy used to drive water from firewood is wasted for home heating.