So, while trawling Groupon I came upon this:
http://www.groupon.com.au/deals/national-deal/-pine-appz-/715904866 and thought hmmmm good idea. Then I got to thinking, Christmas often IS a pretty wasteful holiday. Lights up energy consumption, people use real trees a lot, wrapping paper gets used and thrown out, food gets made to an excess and sometimes not eaten.....etc.
What are ways you reduce waste during the holidays? Assuming you celebrate of course.
Mine are:
-I often reuse wrapping paper....maybe it's the German side of me but my German family always opened gifts without wrapping paper, and I can't bring myself to rip it. When I was growing up my mom also made Christmas gift bags out of fabric and we reused them every year. We even went in with my aunt and uncle and shared the bags between my dad's side of the family, so no paper was wasted for any gifts on that side. My Oma on my mom's side always did something similar as well. I try to give gifts in things that people can reuse, like cloth gift bags or baskets.
-When I ate meat, I always made the most of it....I never did individual cutlets, but bought a whole bird to roast, made sure I ate all leftovers, and even used it for soup and stuff. So NOTHING was wasted. If I couldn't eat it, I froze it and ate it later.
-I still freeze any leftovers I can't eat.
-I love having a tree, but I don't use a real tree. Even when I was back in Canada, where most people think fake trees are some sort of crime against Christmas or something (probably because it's the right climate for those trees and there are a gajillion farms around and a gajillion trees everywhere as well). I don't use any disposable decorations like tinsel.
-I don't use lights, but the idea of solar powered LED lights does appeal....especially here where the sun actually shines this time of year (where I grew up you're lucky if you even see the sun in December).
-I make bows and gift tags and stuff from recycled materials. Christmas cards from the year before work great!
Share!
