After the holidays, we’re often left with the problem of what to do with all the waste — from the platters of uneaten food to the Christmas tree to the old things that the shiny new gifts replaced. The answer: reuse or recycle them. See my new “Holiday Guide to Reuse & Recycling” for practical, [...]
Tag Archives: waste
Green Giving for the Holidays
I still remember virtually every gift I received in childhood, not because the gifts were so special, but because they were so few. Though I was a comfortable child of the post-war boom, the times were thrifty compared to today. I never had more than a few dolls, games, crayons, records, books, a bike and [...]
Keep Drugs out of Drinking Water
Disposing of old, expired and/or unneeded medications is tricky. You don’t want kids, teens or pets to get a hold of them (or drug abusers for that matter), so you might think the old recommendation to flush them down the toilet is good advice. But this practice solves one problem only to create another. With [...]
Why Compost
The virtues are obvious if you’re a gardener. What if you’re a person eager to live more sustainably with only so much time to give to the cause? You can’t do better. Composting not only reduces the waste you send to the landfill, but converts it into a useful product without requiring additional resources. Meanwhile, [...]
Composting: Good for Garden & Climate
Composting your lawn and food waste yields triple benefits. (1)It provides fertilizer to help your garden grow. (2)It reduces the waste you send to the landfill. (3)And it sends carbon present in the waste back to the soil where it belongs, rather than allowing it to go up into the atmosphere where it would contribute [...]
Green Gifts and Entertaining for Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s
Interested in having a high-spirited, low-impact holiday celebration, but stymied by the culture around you — maybe even within your own family? You can make it happen! Just do the usual things — from gift-giving to feasting — sustainably. For instance, buy durable gifts that will last, avoid overly packaged products, use real plates and [...]
Green Restaurants
If you’re interested in maintaining a low-impact lifestyle, watch where you eat. The restaurant business is extraordinarily wasteful — of food, water, packaging and most particularly energy. In fact, among commercial businesses, restaurants squander more energy per square foot than any other. Restaurants that have been certified green by the Green Restaurant Association are a [...]
Donating a Mattress
With bedbugs on the rise, it’s harder than ever to donate a mattress. But it can often be done if the mattress is clean and bug-free. If not, you may be able to recycle it. A mattress in great condition — with neither sags, stains nor pests — may find a home in your own [...]
Daily Trash: How to Reduce It
One day this month when I was on my own (sans family), I weighed all my trash — both garbage and recycling. It amounted to 2.48 pounds and consisted in the main of packaging. At that rate, I’d waste a staggering 10 tons in 25 years. In Trashy Habits, my November issue of This Green [...]
Donating and Recycling Old Clothes
In my home, when we’re through with clothes or shoes, we typically hold onto them a long, long time — not out of sentimentality, simply for lack of a convenient alternative. Typically, most of the clothes are in good condition or even “like new” — so they are obviously not garbage material. But I have [...]
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This Green Blog is the companion blog to NRDC's This Green Life, a green living column written by Sheryl Eisenberg for the Natural Resources Defense Council. (Subscribe to get it for FREE each month.) Sheryl has also written Greentips for the Union of Concerned Scientists and designs websites for environmental groups and others with her firm, Mixit Productions.
Holiday gifts that save the environment
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