GreenYour.com

Make your birthday, wedding, or Valentine’s date gift stand out by putting your green brain to work. Careful planning and selective purchasing can go a long way to reducing waste, cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and making a significant impression on the person unwrapping your gift.

How to give green gifts

There are countless ways to make the giving and receiving portion of a special occasion eco-friendly. Birthday boys, brides, and courtiers alike can find eco-friendly registries and gift ideas with a little help...

First, consider some of these green gift-giving ideas:

• Experiential giving: Not only are tickets to a sporting event or coupons for a foot massage fun and personal, they’re easier on packaging and wrapping. More active gift ideas: museums, concerts, spa vouchers, cooking lessons, or theater tickets.
• Tasty greetings: Instead of buying something new, whip up some homemade wine or a cake for your loved one. They’ll appreciate your thoughtfulness and will enjoy the treat for days to come.
• Living gifts: Instead of giving something that’ll break in no time, choose an item that will literally live on for years. Houseplants or seeds in earth-friendly containers are a great way to give some lasting green.
• Collect for charity: Have a tree planted or an animal "adopted" through a wildlife conservation organization for your gift recipient. Giftees can also request that a direct donation be made to a charity of their choice.

The outside counts

Next, remember to consider green attributes of giftwrap and greeting cards.

• Wrap it up: You’ve gone to a lot of work to find the perfect eco-gift, now wrap it up in green! Choose reusable giftbags, recyclable paper, or wrapping made from recycled and tree-free materials.
• Dear John (but nicer): If you can’t find your way to opt out of a greeting card, consider recycled-content or tree-free ones.
• Too big for their britches: If you’ve got a gift that’s larger than life, wrap it up with a bow instead of covering it in paper. A fun alternative for those oversized gifts: instead of wrapping, hide it somewhere in your home or in a park and leave clues to send the recipient on a gift hunt.

Greener gift-giving

When shopping for yourself or a friend or family member, try to keep these general green principles in mind:

• True wants and needs: When considering a gift, think about what the recipient really needs or wants. Don’t buy something you’re unsure of, because chances are, it’ll be tossed in short order, wasting lots of resources and energy.
• Recycled content = green: Look specifically for the phrase "post-consumer" to ensure you're getting something made out of materials collected at recycling centers (and not just industry by-products).
• Opt for recyclable gifts: Check labels and ingredient lists to see what something is made of before purchasing it. Though most paper, tin, and glass is recyclable, the same isn't true of plastics and Styrofoam. Educate yourself about your local recycling center's acceptance policy so the gift’s recipient will be able to recycle it if and when needed.
• Low-power options: Choose gifts that are either energy-efficient or battery-free. Your loved one will thank you for not adding to their electricity load.
• In it for the long-haul: Choosing gifts that’ll last a good long time is a great green practice. This’ll cut waste, reduce new resource harvesting, and lighten your recipient’s conscience, too.
• The store on the corner: Find gifts that were locally grown, raised, or made in your area to reduce the carbon dioxide emitted in the transport of your gift to the receiver. When you can't find what you need nearby, online shopping is a great green option.

Find it! Eco-friendly gifts and registries

Choosing toys for your newborn or items for your upcoming nuptials? Locate lots of gift registry services for all sorts of occasions below. Gift-givers will also find resources and eco-friendly gift ideas to make shopping a breeze.

Before you buy

Green claims may not mean real-life eco-friendly products, so dig a little to be sure your online purchase is truly green. A recent by TerraChoice Environmental Marketing found that of the 1,018 products examined, all but one committed at least a few sins of greenwashing in an attempt to convince consumers that a product was greener than in reality.

Need a little help distinguishing the true thing from the fakes? Check out this Responsible Shopper guide that will give you the skinny on the social and environmental impact of major corporations. And check out What's Green? to find out how GreenYour chooses products.

Giving green gifts helps you go green because…

• It reflects your commitment to living green and supports eco-friendly businesses.
• Registering for energy-efficient, sustainable, recyclable products helps you achieve a smaller eco-footprint.

Gift giving is an enjoyable way to celebrate occasions of all sorts, but the resulting waste puts a real damper on the process for those concerned about the environmental impact of their generosity. Not only do gifts entail oft-wasteful wrapping, they also require the extraction of new natural resources during production, much of which is wasted in no time when a gift doesn’t suit the recipient’s tastes or needs.

New parents and caring friends spend thousands of dollars on gifts for new babies, much of which is used for only a few months. And $19 billion goes toward gift-giving for weddings every year.[1] Americans produce 1 million additional tons of waste every week between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day.[2]

In 2005, over 245 million tons of garbage were produced in the US. Each American resident generates approximately 4.5 pounds (a little over 2 kilos) of garbage every day.[3] US residents generate more solid waste than the residents of any other country. Canadians generate the next largest amount of waste, about 3.75 pounds (1.7 kilos) each per day, whereas Germany and Sweden produce less than 2 pounds per day (less than 1 kilo) per person, the least of all the industrialized nations.[4]

Buying gifts made of eco-friendly or recycled materials and recycling them when they're no longer needed (that includes the packaging) is good for the environment for a variety of reasons. Since some materials like aluminum can be recycled locally over and over indefinitely, the costs of transporting raw materials long distances for manufacturing can be reduced or eliminated as well. Recycling even plays a role in reducing emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases. Recycling programs are estimated to have kept the equivalent of 39 million car's worth of carbon out of the atmosphere in 2005.[3]

External links

• Plenty Magazine
• Green Elegance Weddings
• Enact - Steps to Greener Living: Green Gift Ideas
• National Resources Defense Council - The Great Green Gift-Giving Guide