DECEMBER 17, 2009 ISSUE
Green Your Holiday Routine
Boone Recycling Staff Offers Tips for Holidays
This Christmas, re-think your traditional gift-wrapping methods—consider reusing bags and creating wrapping paper from scraps.
The Town of Boone’s recycling program is committed to helping the community find creative ways to recycle and preserve our natural resources. During the holiday season, there are many opportunities to reduce and reuse the massive amount of packaging involved in the holiday routine. Here are a few hands-on ideas that are easy to incorporate into your shopping and wrapping practices.
For more information about recycling and any of these holiday ideas, contact Marsha Story, Town of Boone recycling coordinator, at 828-268-6230.
• If every American family wrapped just three presents in reused materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields.
• When you go shopping, bring your own tote bags and avoid using plastic bags.
• Make your own tote bags from old t-shirts or clothing items found around the house.
• Remember that much of the packaging from presents can be recycled, such as corrugated cardboard and pasteboard. Most mail centers will take packing peanuts.
• Have children make their own wrapping paper by designing and coloring on paper grocery bags or use old homework pages to wrap gifts. Grandparents love to see them. Sunday comics make colorful giftwrap for children’s packages as do old posters, maps, old sheet music and wallpaper scraps.
• Save your store-bought gift bags each year to redistribute to family and friends.
• For packing, consider these alternatives: popcorn (enclose a note saying birds can eat it), biodegradable starch peanuts, used packing peanuts or bubble wrap from a previous gift or crumpled newspapers.
• Consider buying a potted tree or purchase your tree from a tree farm rather than cutting one in the wild; use trimmed branches from your tree for decorations for wreaths. Consider buying an artificial tree that can be used year after year.
• Decorate your home, tree and centerpiece with holly, cedar, berries, cranberries, popcorn, fruits and nuts, all of which can be composted or used for bird food after use.
• Save gift boxes, bows and ribbons to use next year.
• Adorn your gifts with these items: reusable items such as hair bows, ornaments, shoe laces, neckties, toys, bows and holiday cards cut up from previous years, scrap fabrics, lace yarn, rickrack and seam tape, scarves, combinations of beads and buttons and dried or silk flowers.
• Cut up old Christmas cards to use as nametags, bookmarkers, dinner place cards or postcards.
• Use Christmas stockings to wrap small gifts; they can be reused year after year.
• Kitchen gifts can be wrapped in a colorful towel. Kitchen utensils can pop out of an oven mitt.
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