While the holiday season brings cheer and fulfillment for many, it also brings along a lot more waste. On average, we toss away nearly 25% more trash between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, than during the rest of the year. We all can recycle more and help to conserve resources and energy this holiday season by shopping with the environment in mind.
Eco-shopping is the practice of making purchasing decisions based on the environmental impact of a particular product. The purchasing decisions you may make while Eco-shopping may vary depending on which environmental issue is of concern to you. For example, some people may be looking for locally produced or organic products; while others may be focused on buying recyclable products or products made with recycled materials.
Below are some Eco-shopping tips to make your holiday season less wasteful and more rewarding:
- Make sure that what put in your grocery cart is acceptable in your Denver Recycles purple cart. For example, buy pasta in a recyclable paperboard box rather than a non-recyclable plastic wrapper. Avoid eggs contained in non-recyclable Styrofoam or plastic egg cartons and instead buy them in recyclable paper egg cartons. And, consider getting canned vegetables in recyclable steel cans rather than non-recyclable plastic frozen food bags.
- Pay attention to packaging. Purchase items in bulk to reduce the packaging you buy in the first place and avoid single serving food items such as juice boxes, boxed lunches, cereal and chip variety packs, etc.
- Purchase products made from recycled materials. The recycling process doesn’t end when we put our recycling carts out for collection or at the processing facility. Without purchasing products made from recycled materials, we are not supporting the manufacturing companies that are producing these products. So use your purchasing power to support residential recycling programs and their associated markets, and select products made from “post-consumer” recycled content material. If you can buy a recyclable item that also is made from recycled materials, then you’ve really hit the waste reduction jackpot!
- Wrap it up in reused items. Wrapping paper is typically used once and thrown in the trash. Instead of buying wrapping paper, try reusing colorful pages torn from magazines to wrap small gifts, and old maps or decorative newspaper pages for larger boxes. If every American family wrapped just 3 presents in re-used materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields.
- Find recyclable cards. If you purchase holiday cards, look for ones made of recycled paper. Avoid cards with plastic or foil coatings since these cannot be recycled in your Denver Recycles purple cart. Or, send ''electronic cards'' or make a phone call instead!
- Skip buying paper plates, cups and napkins for your holiday party and make it a more festive affair by using dishes, glasses and cloth napkins.
May you have a joyful and waste free holiday!
For more information about Waste Reduction and other Denver Recycles programs call
3-1-1 or visit us on-line at
Denvergov.org/DenverRecycles.