Ahhh the holidays. Family, food, gifts and parties. There is no doubt that the holidays are packed with much more consumption than usual. I wanted to offer some solutions to lessen your impact on our mother Earth this season.
1. Buy Fair Trade.
By giving gifts that are ceritfied fair trade, your not only giving a gift to a friend or family member, but your helping over seas workers get paid fairly for their hard work; which is a great gift in its self.
2. Wrap Gifts With Leftover Wrapping Paper,Fabric or Reuse Gift Bags.
My favorite option is using fabric. Use old clothes with nice patterns (cut it though so it doesn’t just look like an old shirt!) This can be really fun and creative; and better still, you can keep the fabric to use for the following years.
3. When You Buy, Buy Responsibly.
Try buying sustainable clothing items made out of organic fabrics. Certified organic fabrics are guaranteed to be pesticide free; this better not just for the environment, but for the person who will be wearing the garment. Also look for these key sustainable fabrics: Bamboo, Organic Cotton, Hemp, and Nettles.
4. Give an Earth Saving Gift.
Why not give a gift that will keep on giving? Try putting together a “green” starter kit for those who want to take responsibility for their consumption but aren’t sure where to start. Try these following items.: compact florescent light bulbs, rechargeable batteries, cotton shopping totes to help eliminate paper/plastic bag waste, recycled paper goods, solar powered chargers, and maybe an easy to follow book/guide to help further their eco journey.
5. Choose Sustainable Food Items
Try doing your holiday grocery shopping at a local farmer’s market or Co-op. This will support local farmers in your area and eliminate the need for food to travel long distances, which will reduce it’s carbon footprint. Also, buy organic and support healthy and responsible consumption. If you choose to eat eggs, dairy and cheese, opt for free range options so you can be assured in fair treatment of the farm animals involved.
Click here for some eco travel tips brought to you by WeEarth.com
Click here for some creative sustainable holiday gift ideas from the WeEarth Marketplace
Cheers to the Earth and the holiday season! I hope everyone has a safe, fun and Earth friendly holiday and new year!
your life is your life don't let it be clubbed into dank submission. be on the watch. there are ways out. there is a light somewhere. it may not be much light but it beats darkness. be on the watch. the gods offer you chances. know them. take them. you can't beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. and the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. your life is your life. know life is your life. know it while you have it. you are marvelous the gods wait to delight in you.
Recycled toilet paper, hybrid cars, organic food—these things aren’t cheap. In fact, a lot of sustainable actions are kinda pricey. In good economic times, it’s the kind of pricey people can feel good about. But “feeling good” doesn’t pay the gas bill right now. There was a time when green was the cheapest of all the colors. During the Great Depression, our great-grandparents lived more sustainably without even realizing that’s what they were doing. So how did they make do?
They grew their food. They kept a garden, even if it was only a little patch. If they had a fruit tree, none of it went to waste. They made compost.
They made their own stuff. They didn’t run down to Trader Joe’s every time they needed hummus. They cooked from scratch, they baked bread, they made soup stock. They sewed.
They borrowed things. They knocked on a neighbor’s door for a cup of sugar. They read books from the library. They wore hand-me-downs.
They fixed things. Our great-grandmothers kept a maraca-shaped thing around the house for the sole purpose of mending holes in the toes of socks. Think about that the next time you mindlessly slap down the credit card at the Gap.
They saved everything. Every part of the chicken or pig was cooked and eaten. They turned the months of August and September into a fully-stocked pantry that would last the year. They saved the bags from cereal boxes “just in case.” They would not scoff if they saw you rinsing out a sour cream container.
They helped each other out. They bought eggs from the farm up the road. A daughter’s wedding was “catered” by the neighbors. There were no warehouse stores stocked with goods that spent a month crossing the Pacific in a container ship. There was a guy who whittled toys for the neighborhood kids out on his front porch.
Maybe it’s time for a little nostalgia. We’re starting into a different section of the path to sustainability, one that looks more like a dirt road than a four-lane highway. It’s a section that our great-grandparents started down 80 years ago. So perhaps we need to go backwards to go forward.
