with Craig Jung • StLouisGreen.com
Healthy Planet Green Living Editor
The holiday season is here. This has been a time of year that generates a lot of waste. But does it have to be that way? Let’s look at some ways to reduce waste this holiday season.
Look for post-consumer recycled gift wrap when shopping for wrapping paper. You can also make your own out of the funny pages or your kids’ artwork. Get creative and have fun with this one!
Use gift bags. They come in all sizes and styles. Consider the fact that they can hold many presents at once, they can be reused and passed around the family many times over, and you save yourself from having to wrap presents. No scissors and tape required!
Send friends and family holiday greeting cards made out of post-consumer recycled paper.
Give presents that come in less packaging. Tickets to an event, gift cards, and homemade goodies are just a few examples of gifts that don’t come inside layers of plastic and styrofoam.
Light up the holidays with strings of LED lights. These bright little bulbs are up to 90% more efficient than the old-fashioned incandescent bulbs.
Buy local. You can find a list of local St. Louis area stores on the BUILD St. Louis website.
The Holiday Light Recycling Drive is at 58 Wal-Mart stores now, including St. Louis, Columbia, Cape Girardeau, Springfield, and their surrounding areas. Check out the interactive map of locations on www.StLouisGreen.com. The drive is at Wal-Mart stores from November 19th till December 4th, and stays at our other locations until January 31st.
Please help us make this an outrageously successful recycling drive and bring us your lights!
Waste diversion has had a good year here in the St. Louis area. Take a look at these numbers!
The St. Louis Cardinals, partnering with Operation Food Search and the Bridge, donated 17,045 lbs of food to feed the hungry.
St. Louis Green Furniture and Metal to Food Program diverted over 200,000 pounds from the landfill. 10% of these proceeds go to Operation Food Search to feed the hungry.
The St. Louis Community College campuses just completed a series of recycling drives, with the help of Midwest Recycling Center, which resulted in 228,767 pounds of electronics that would otherwise have ended up in a landfill!
Is your organization doing something green and newsworthy? Post it on our St. Louis Green Facebook page and let us all know about it!
For more developments and events, check out www.StLouisGreen.com. We post new events on our calendar on the website, and also announce them on Facebook.
Make sure you visit our new interactive web site www.thehealthyplanet.com. We have all your Green and Healthy Living information every month including our online edition, archived articles and online ads, links and resources.