Don’t Give a Holiday Doorstop
By Greg Peterson
The holidays are a perfect time to start reducing, reusing and maybe we can recycle a little less. Think about it: we can reuse old newspaper into gift-wrap, use last year’s holiday cards as this year’s gift tags and every so often, we can turn unwanted holiday gifts into something useful. Call them doorstops or snow globes, so many of the gifts we give land as dust collectors or worse yet get filed in the trash, sometimes without a second thought.
If you’re anything like me, then I am sure you have received your own fair share of “doorstops”—unwanted presents that really serve no other purpose than to hold the door open. I always appreciate the sentiment behind the gifts I receive, but I think it’s about time we start giving better gifts—gifts that won’t fill landfills, clog waterways and end up holding someone’s door open.
There is a 20-minute viral video called “The Story of Stuff” making its way around the web and it cites a scary fact: only 1% of the stuff we buy is still around after six months (Paul Hawken, Natural Capitalism, 1999). So basically 99% of even the most well-intentioned holiday gifts will wind up in the trash by summer…bummer.
But even if our gifts do manage to make it into that 1% and survive past the July benchmark, the holidays should be a prime time for giving green. This season, look for items made from recyclable and/or organic materials. Items made from metal, glass, hemp, bamboo and organic cotton are all a great place to start.
Help reduce the use and that frightening statistic of 99% of our “stuff” ending up in the trash this holiday season by giving smart and giving green. Happy Holidays!
