After children's drawings and paintings have been displayed for a while they can be used to wrap presents - this also makes the present special. Wrap presents in newspaper comics. Take apart a paper bag to make a flat surface, draw, stamp, even sew designs and use it to wrap your presents. Decorate and use paper lunch sacks as gift bags. Wrap presents in colorful fabric or use cloth bags as gift bags.
Use unbleached coffee filters - bleached paper products create dioxin, a deadly toxic which is dumped into waterways. Some coffee makers have reusable filter baskets and there are cloth filters that can be washed and reused again and again.
Give away things you no longer need or want, or donate to a charitable organization or thrift store. Don't throw away good items that are still usable.
Share magazines and newspapers with friends or donate your already read ones to hospitals, doctors offices, or community places. Here in Hawaii: The library accepts used magazines in good condition. Ask you local school, after school program, preschool or daycare if they need magazines for art projects. They often appreciate the donation.
One less meat-based meal a week helps the planet and your diet. For example: It requires 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. You will also save some trees. For each hamburger that originated from animals raised on rainforest land, approximately 55 square feet of forest have been destroyed. Interested in yummy vegetarian options? Boca makes excellent vegetarian grillers like Italian Sausage, burgers, and breakfast sausage links. Another favorite is Morning Star’s mock chick’n nuggets, hot dogs, sausage patties & burgers like tomato-basil and spicy black bean. These options are so delicious and convincing, you wouldn’t believe there’s no meat!
Nearly 90% of plastic water bottles are not recycled, instead taking thousands of years to decompose. Buy a reusable container and fill it with tap water, a great choice for the environment, your wallet, and possibly your health. The EPA’s standards for tap water are more stringent than the FDA’s standards for bottled water.
Each year, Americans throw away 138 billion straws and stirrers. But skipping the stirrer doesn’t mean drinking your coffee black. Simply put your sugar and cream in first, and then pour in the coffee, and it should be well mixed. Determined to stir? Break off a piece of pasta from the cupboard! You can nibble after using it, compost, or throw away with less guilt.
If you must water your lawn, do it early in the morning before any moisture is lost to evaporation. Have a few weeds? Spot treat them with vinegar. Not sure if you should rake? Normal clippings act as a natural fertilizer, let them be. If you’ve waited too long, rake by hand – it’s excellent exercise.
Every two minutes you save on your shower can conserve more than ten gallons of water. If everyone in the country saved just one gallon of water from their daily shower, over the course of the year it would equal twice the amount of freshwater withdrawn from the Great Lakes every day.
Not only are you extending the life of your vehicle, but you are creating less pollution and saving gas. A properly maintained vehicle, clean air filters, and inflated tires can greatly improve your vehicle’s performance. And it might not hurt to clean out the trunk- all that extra weight could be costing you at the pump.
During an average year, an American uses approximately 2,200 napkins - around six each day. If everyone in the US used one less napkin a day, more than a billion pounds of napkins could be saved from landfills each year.
Take advantage of libraries by borrowing books and movies instead of buying them and save money too.
Stop junk mail from coming to your mailbox. To have your name removed from mailing lists write to Direct Marketing Service / 11 West 42nd Street / PO Box 3861 / NY NY 10163. Or go online to the Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service website.
Opt-Out of receiving unwanted phonebooks to your home or business. To have your name placed on a "opt-out" list for phonebook directories go to the Yellow Pages Association's Opt-Out website (www.yellowpagesoptout.com).
Or donate them to a local school participating in a phonebook directory recycling challenge, for more information visit this website.
If every U.S. household replaced just one roll of 1,000-sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissues with 100 percent recycled ones, it could save 373,000 trees, 1.48 million cubic feet of landfill space and 155 million gallons of water.
The energy saved each year by steel recycling is equal to the electrical power used by 18 million homes each year - or enough energy to last Los Angeles residents for eight years.
Recycling glass instead of making it from silica sand reduces mining waste by 70 percent, water use by 50 percent and air pollution by 20 percent.
Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every three months. Recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to operate a TV for three hours.
Recycling a ton of paper saves 17 trees, two barrels of oil (enough to run the average car for 1,260 miles), 4,100 kilowatts of energy (enough power for the average home for six months), 3.2 cubic yards of landfill space and 60 pounds of air pollution.
Did you know that your household food waste can be placed into your compost bin and co-composted with your green waste? The moisture from the food is a good addition to the green waste to promote high quality land application material. It also helps to promote less frequent rubbish can bag changing since there is no rotten food creating moisture and smell. For more information about composting, visit the US Composting Council at www.compostingcouncil.org.
Some time in between the sashimi and the coleslaw, you lost track of your cup, and now there are a sea of matching cups on the table, one of which might be yours. The next time you picnic, set out a permanent marker next to disposable dinnerware so guests can mark their cup and everyone will only use one.
Use reusable containers for food storage instead of wrapping with aluminum or plastic wrap.
The use of scrap metal instead of virgin materials to make new steel results in a 97 percent reduction in mining wastes, 90 percent savings in virgin materials use, 86 percent reduction in air pollution, 76 percent reduction in water pollution, 74 percent savings in energy, and 40 percent reduction in water use.
Did you know you can flatten your plastic or metal HI-5 containers? Just make sure the HI-5 is visible on the flattened container in order to get your deposit back.