Americans contribute 25% more volume to landfill between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. Follow these tips from SWANCC to reduce the amount of garbage you generate and embrace the holiday spirit.
- When entertaining, use reusable dishes, glassware, silverware, and napkins rather than disposables.
- Reuse gift bags or wrap gifts in a piece of cloth or lace, pillow cases, blankets, holiday tins, or comics from the Sunday paper.
- Shop with reusable bags – smaller ones for produce and fruit.
- Recycle your old holiday lights in the bin behind the Village Garage, Monday to Friday from 7am to 3pm
- Make ornaments from nature, use a pine cone, twig, bark, etc.
- Decorate a large plant with lights and ribbons rather than a Christmas tree.
- Create homemade gifts. Check out these ideas.
- Give “gifts of the heart” – coupons for house chores, snow shoveling, making a meal, giving a massage, babysitting, etc.
- Give “certificates” for doing things together, like going to a concert, sports events, a movie, ice skating, bowling, or a bike ride.
- Go gift-free and make the gathering about family being together.
- Use the money you would spend on gifts to make donations to your favorite charities - either one large one as a family, or smaller ones for each member individually.
- Volunteer at a soup kitchen or food pantry.
- Visit with an elderly or housebound neighbor – take a decorated plant.
- Put together a care package and send to troops overseas.
- Put seed out for the birds.
- Donate gently used books to a children’s hospital.
- Go sledding, build a snowman or have a snowball fight – no matter your age!
