The holidays are a time of joy and celebration, of getting together with family and friends and sharing the gifts of the season. The holidays are also a time when North Americans produce 25% more waste than any other time of the year, which equates to 25 million extra tons of garbage going to the landfill. Ho! Ho! Holy crap! This season, we’re sharing a few favorite tips from the Whole Foods Market Green Mission Team to help us all reduce our holiday waste. We know our customers are some of the greenest folks around, so please share your tips with us too. Hopefully we’ll help each other discover new and creative ways to live lighter on the planet this holiday season.
Trade in your conventional strands of lights for energy efficient solar or LED lights – 90% more energy efficient and they last longer.
Don’t risk falling asleep without turning out the lights – use an appliance timer to turn lights off at the end of the evening.
Place lights in strategic locations instead of all over everywhere. You can reduce by using just a few strands.
Turn your lights off just a little earlier than you did last year.
Recycle old strands of lights by removing and discarding old bulbs and recycling the strand as scrap metal.
Companies like HolidayLEDs.com opens in a new tab will not only recycle your lights for you, they will also give you 15% off your order of anything on their website when you send them lights to recycle. I like their suggestion of coordinating with your friends and neighbors to collect old lights to send to them for recycling.
Check out Earth911.com opens in a new tab to see if there is a holiday lights recycling facility near you.
Do you have tips for alternative ways to light up the holidays? We’d love to hear them!
