December 27, 2012

What to Do with Holiday Waste

With another Christmas come and gone, we're all still recovering from the family gatherings, the holiday parties, the food and all that shopping. As you relax and look forward to the New Year, don't forget about taking the time to properly see to all that holiday waste.

Here are some easy green tips that you can follow to minimize the impact of holiday waste.

- Packing Peanuts - Online shoppers wind up with a huge amount of packing peanuts throughout the holiday season. If you ever send gifts via mail or sell items on eBay, you can save these in a dry, cool area for future use. If you have no use for the packaging materials, you can drop them off at many copy and shipping centers, including most UPS stores nationwide.

- Wrapping - Wrapping paper, boxes and bows can nearly all be recycled. It's also perfectly fine to reuse wrapping for next year's gifts. If you're crafty, you can even fashion patchwork wrapping paper "quilts" out of scraps from this year's gifts.

- Greeting Cards - If you don't save Christmas cards for sentimental reasons, why not cut them up and use them for gift tags next holiday season? You can also recycle unwanted cards.

- Christmas Trees - Although Christmas trees are biodegradable, when you simply put them out for the trash, you're contributing to overcrowding in landfills. If you have a wood chipper, you can use your tree to make mulch, or you can check iRecycle for businesses in your area that will pick-up your Christmas tree or accept drop-offs for recycling.

- Food Scraps - If you overachieved on the amount of food prepared for your holiday party, throw away as little as possible. Consider purchasing a composting bin to start an organic garden in the spring. You can also freeze many prepared foods to enjoy on cold winter evenings when you don't feel like cooking.

How do you deal with holiday waste? Share your tips in the Comments section!