Tips on Making This Holiday Season More Sustainable!

The last night of the bike tour we passed around a piece of paper asking for ideas on how we can make this holiday season more sustainable for our family and friends. These are some of the ideas we came up with and would like to share with you. As individuals our choices and actions can have a large impact, often beyond what we will ever realize. We encourage you to consider how we can make decisions that will ultimately have a positive impact on our health, community, and environment.

Gift Ideas

• Try to purchase gifts exclusively from companies that score an A- or better in the Better World Shopping Guide.
• Purchase gifts from re-sale shops.
• Use Newspaper for gift wrapping.
• Hand Crank Blender
• Home Composter
• Seeds and potting soil
• Sprouting Jar
• Gardening Tools
• Bike Tools
• Rechargeable Batteries & Charger for those electronic gifts
  

Stocking Stuffers

• Seafood Watch Cards
• High Efficiency Light Bulbs
• Re-Usable Bags
• Re-Usable H20 Bottles

Ideas on how you can lessen your environmental footprint:

• Shut off holiday house lights when leaving the house and sleeping.
• Try buying ingredients for holiday meals that are:

Local
Organic
Vegetarian/Vegan

• Try carpooling as much as possible to holiday gatherings or ride a bike (if there isn't 3 feet of snow outside)
• Don't buy a real Christmas tree, instead:

Plant a tree & decorate it!
Use a tree/plant you already have
Get creative and make a tree with things you find around your house

• Don't Buy Anything! Make Stuff...Donate to an organization in someone's name.
• Make your own Christmas Cards, Send E-Cards, Use Recycled Paper Cards
• Purchase food in bulk, avoid individual wrapped treats

What other ideas can you come up with?