We generate a huge amount of trash during the holidays, all in the name of giving.

Metro Vancouver is encouraging us to cut down on our holiday trash.

Here are some suggestions:

• Give great gifts, but don’t buy garbage. When trying to decide between two gifts, choose the one with the least amount of packaging.
• Give the gift of time. Offer your services or expertise as a present. Make dinner, knit a sweater or plan a special day out.
• Give an experience. Dinner, tickets to the movies or a hockey game, or passes to the local skating rink.
• Give a gift that lasts. Pass on a family heirloom or start your own tradition.
• Give a group gift. Pool resources with a few people to give a high quality gift.
• Give a gift wrapped in newspaper. Reuse a ribbon to fancy it up.
• Give your garbage can a break! Visit www.metrovancouverrecycles.org for a comprehensive list of things that can be donated, reused or recycle.

If you’ve got some holiday waste tips, you can share them with others on the Metro Vancouver website.  Here are some waste tips already submitted.

Here’s the video they did to get the point across:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC_LUpbZdOY

1. give with intention.
We challenge you to not just give for the sake of giving stuff, or because you are enticed by the merchandising or the brilliant price point in store windows. As Dora the Explorer says “stop and think”. Give to fewer people with more intention. Put more thought and energy into buying items and focus on giving quality.

2. spread the green around you.
Local, handmade, and artisan make timeless, unique gifts that keep the green in your community and strengthen the local economy. Or even better redistribute your wealth. Instead of traditional gift giving support a local non-profit that is making a difference in your local community. Tell your friends and family what you’ve done.

3. creative wrapping. don’t look for the silver lining.
Don’t kill the messenger. Use your vivid imagination and have fun with creating green wrapping – from the classic newspaper comics & magazine pages to silk scarves, cloth bags, storage containers, cereal boxes, kid’s painting, or even star shaped potato stamps pressed on post paper – really the sky is the limit. Start thinking about it now and set aside supplies (this will prevent you from resorting to the cheap, and not so cheerful solution). Use it as a good excuse to break out some cheer and have some quality bonding time.
At all costs avoid the silver lined gift paper – it can’t be recycled! If you must buy wrapping paper look for 100% post-consumer waste content that is processed chlorine-free.

4. give your time. being present is the best present.
Celebrate with the ones you love. Limit your party hoping, and plan to invest quantity of time with quality people. It seems simple, but as you get caught up in the craziness of the season it easy to over look, over book, feel frazzled, and not enjoy yourself.

5. celebrate what’s on the table.
Creative menu planning with food that shows taste and respect for your guest creates a memorable meal that is cause enough for good conversation. Focus on quality ingredients that are local, artisan, organic, fairly traded, homemade, and minimally processed. As for centerpieces, glass bowls full of cranberries, and citrus are festive and will live another day. Invest in beeswax (or soy) candles with all-cotton wicks, they burn cleaner and smell divine. And for the star of the show, we highly recommend Organa Farm birds raised with care in the Cascade Mountains by the Deschamp family. If you want to skip the dishes, use biodegradable cutlery, plates, and re-useable cloth napkins.

Green Gift resources worth checking out:

My favourite:
Dreaming of a Green Christmas

Others:
we’re dreaming of a green christmas
when visions of quince and hazelnuts dance in your head – Bill Jones
8 green ways to wrap gifts
20+ Ways to Give Without Giving “Stuff”

Giving

Treehugger 2008 Green gift guide

Sustainable Food Organization Membership:
Vancouver’s FarmFolk/CityFolk Society sells $30 memberships ($15 student/senior) that include a quarterly newsletter, voting rights so you can influence how the organization runs, discounts at events like the harvest celebration Feast of Fields, and access to a community of like-minded people who want to make the world better through food.