Tips to have green holiday season

There are many steps that can be taken to promote an environmentally friendly holiday celebration. The Summit Soil and Water Conservation District recommends:

• Reuse wrappings. Recycled paper products and newspaper comic pages make unusual gift-wrap. You can also reuse last year’s holiday wrappings and save this year’s for next year. Last year’s holiday cards make great gift tags and homemade cards for this year. If every family reused just 2 feet of holiday ribbon, there would be 38,000 feet, enough to tie a bow around the entire planet. Shred old gift-wrap to use for colorful packing material.

• Recycle live trees. If using a natural cut Christmas tree, don’t apply fake snow, and remove all tinsel, because these items cannot be recycled. The National Christmas Tree Association and Earth 911 have a joint website, earth911.org, to find one of the 3,800 tree recycling centers near you.  Summit County Metro Parks also has a tree-recycling program, and they use the trees for wildlife habitat. Some trees are also chipped and distributed on the trails. To find out where to drop off a tree in Summit County Metro Parks, call 330-867-5511, or go to Summitmetroparks.org/christmas-tree-recycling.aspx.

• Purchase gifts made from recycled items. Search online for “environmentally friendly gifts.” There are many worthy charities where buyers can protect and sponsor people, wild and domestic animals, plant a tree, or even provide a goat or a small flock of chickens for a family half-way across the world.

With a little shared effort, we can all have “greener” days this holiday seaso and for all the holidays to come. For more information on environmentally friendly holiday practices, call 330-926-2452, or e-mail sbarbic@summitoh.net.