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HOW GREEN WILL YOUR HOLIDAY GIFTS BE?
by JANE BOGNER
SUNDAY, November 30, 2003

It’s holiday shopping time. Our mailboxes and newspapers are fill with low prices on gifts we just cannot pass up. Your task this year is to make sure the gifts you give along with their packaging is green.

When we buy gifts, we need to look at their life and usefulness. Would we want to hang onto any gift for fifty years? Americans produce twenty-five percent more trash between Thanksgiving and Christmas. An estimated 40 percent of holiday gifts received are on their way to the landfill within a month of the holidays. So take a minute and think green.

Electronics are generally cheaper the weeks before Christmas. The big question is what to do with the old electronic items. Before leaving office, Governor Davis finally signed into law SB 20 which is the electronics recycling bill. Unfortunately it will initially cover only TV and Computer monitors and those recycling programs won’t kick in until late next year.

The good news is that Vallejo Garbage Service (VGS) will have an electronics recycling event in late spring 2004. In the interim, VGS will pick up TV and computer monitors for a fee or you can safely store your old devices until the event.

Shopping locally for your holiday gifts saves energy and time and keeps tax money in our city’s coffers. Check out the new stores downtown when your go to Saturday’s farmers market. Walk up Marin Street to the Museum Bookstore for local books or gift memberships and continue on to the Vallejo Artists Guild Gallery for paintings from local artists.

On that same theme, make a donation in a friend’s name to the local Friends of Animals or Humane Society. This gift will help abandoned dogs and cats and is a waste-free gift for the receiver.

Shopping online may be more environmentally savvy for gifts that you ship to friends and family. Don’t forget to ask the companies to use recyclable packing material such as newspaper instead of Styrofoam peanuts. Check out the Recycled Products page on our website. Some of my favorites include www.recyclestore.com, www.bottlesandcans.com,  and www.ecomall.com. EcoMall offers a wide range of environmentally-friendly products that make great gifts, support sustainable companies and help protect the earth. EBay may have the perfect slightly-used gift for a great price.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has a Great Green Gift-Giving Guide on their website www.nrdc.org/cities/living/ggift.asp. It includes some tips from their environmental professionals for giving easy-on-the-planet presents that go way beyond the basics. Elizabeth Finch recommended the following novel approach to the holidays. She wrote, “I think I was about 10 years old when my mother, a model of anti-materialism before it became fashionable, decided to call off holiday gift-giving altogether. Instead, members of our family donated the money we would have spent on gifts for each other to our favorite charities.”

HOLIDAY PARTIES

If you are going to an informal party this season, consider bringing your own place setting. Food tastes much better on real plates using real cutlery. If you are hosting a party, borrow or rent dishes and cutlery. It makes more sense than buying disposables and throwing them into our landfills. Don't forget to check out local thrift stores for holiday serving dishes for your party.

VALCORE Recycling Vice President Jane Bogner's "A Sorted Affair" is published every other week in the Times-Herald, Community Outlook Section. For recycling information call Genie Kaggerud, VALCORE Recycling manager at 645-8258 or visit www.VALCORErecycling.org.

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