Dream of a white Christmas while creating a greener style of celebrating the holiday season. Alberta Environment offers the following tips to enjoy environmentally friendly festivities:
• Choose items with less or recyclable packaging.
• Consider handicrafts by local artisans and re-gifting items that someone else would appreciate.
• Select gifts that don’t involve hardware, such as concert tickets, theatre subscriptions or certificates for cooking or fitness classes.
• Wrap gifts in newspaper, magazine pages or reusable materials such as cloth bags.
• Choose reusable dinner wear and cloth napkins to reduce the amount of material that’s bound for the trash.
• Give gifts that promote sustainable habits, like composters, travel mugs, canvas shopping bags and bus passes.
• Get creative. Make new holiday cards and gift boxes from the ones you received last year. Send e-mails and e-mail invitations to eliminate your paper footprint.
• Use energy-efficient lights and decorations, and put them on timers.
• Keep unwanted goods like winter coats, boots and household items out of the landfills by giving them to community organizations for distribution for people in need of such items.
• Visit www.onesimpleact.alberta.ca to learn more.