How You Can Give Better Holiday Gifts AND Be More
Environmentally Friendly
It's the holiday shopping season, and Grinning Planet would like
to point out that the holiday phrase "Ho, ho, ho!" also relates
to being green--it's the Jolly Green Giant's tagline. Well, OK,
that doesn't exactly get us to the "eco-friendly" meaning of
being green. But when shopping for holiday gifts, there are a
number of ways we can be environmentally friendly.
All manufactured items, including gifts, require material and
energy to be produced, and production and transportation of the
items results in some level of pollution. Here are a couple of
ways to make sure those resources aren't a waste:
1) Useful Gifts -- One of the best ways to ensure the resources
related to your gift don't get wasted is to make sure your gift
doesn't end up gathering dust in a closet. While "surprises" can
be nice, giving someone a gift out of the blue without any clue
whether they'll truly like it or use it may get you one of those
half-hearted "Um, oh, cool, thanks" responses. A different
approach is to ask your giftees for wish lists, which works
especially well within families, where social protocols and
rituals can be more easily adjusted. This lessens the surprise
factor but guarantees that you're giving a gift that the person
will use.
2) Drawing Names -- As families and circles of friends grow, the
number of gifts being exchanged can increase rapidly. Rather
than each person within a group giving a gift to every other
member of the group, names can be drawn so that each person
gives gifts to only one or two people. This reduces the overall
amount of resources related to presents and will reduce your
holiday stress level. It may be too late this year to implement
such a strategy, but if you'd like to try it next year,
suggesting the change to your family/friends just after this
holiday season will give people time to think about it and
adjust to the idea.
Regardless of how you arrange your gift giving, choosing
environmentally friendly products will be better for the planet
than buying everyone an economy sized bottle of cloying cologne
or some other non-green item. When looking at items claiming to
be green, the US Federal Trade Commission advises that shoppers
look for quantitative or specific claims, rather than general
claims like "green," "eco-friendly," or "environmentally safe,"
which are open to interpretation. Better descriptions are things
like "made from organic cotton," "made from 50% recycled
materials," or "manufactured without animal testing."
Here are a few categories of gifts that would be more
eco-friendly than some others:
1) Organic -- A gift basket of food is a typical holiday gift
that's even better if at least part of the basket is filled with
organic yummies. If you know someone who is a coffee lover, they
will flip over the bag of organic gourmet coffee you give them.
Organic flowers are available, as are flower arrangements that
are not organic but whose growers minimize their use of chemical
fertilizers and pesticides. Organic cotton clothing and bedding
are also making rapid gains in popularity. 2) Fair trade --
Buying fair-trade items--items typically made by indigenous
peoples--often helps the creators sustain themselves without
resorting to environmentally unwise practices such as
clearcutting forests. Whether it's art, coffee, chocolate,
soaps, or carpets, buying items labeled "fair trade" lets you
avoid purchasing gifts that were produced by companies that use
exploitative labor practices.
3) Recycled -- These days, lots of things are made out of
recycled materials--from works of art to clothing. A great
holiday gift might be some of the very cool clothes they now
make from recycled cotton. Some eco-friendly clothing even
includes 50% fibers from recycled plastic bottles.
4) Honorary Gifts -- How much stuff does anyone really need?
Once we reach a certain age, getting more "stuff" is as much a
storage problem as anything else. Donating money to a person's
favorite charity or cause in their name is a nice substitute. To
some extent, a nice holiday get-together with family and
friends, full of good cheer and warm conversation, is as good a
gift as many of us really need. But for the instances where a
gift is appropriate, here's a good starting point for your
eco-friendly shopping: Grinning Planet's Green Products and
Services page (
http://www.grinningplanet.com/5005/green-products-services.htm
).
(Disclaimer: Grinning Planet does not receive any commission
from the companies listed on the Green Products and Services
page.)
Finally, we'd like to put in a word for our dear departed Uncle
Freeman. When cash got short, he still never skimped on the
Christmas gifts--he just sent them C.O.D. For jokes, cartoons,
and more great environmental information, visit
http://www.grinningplanet.com .