Green Gift Giving Ideas
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If you are looking to live a greener, more eco-friendly life, giving green gifts is one way to help spread the knowledge of this lifestyle. When you buy green gifts, you are being consistent with your own values and supporting services and businesses that you believe in. You are also sending a note to the recipient of the gift. Here are some great green gift ideas for this holiday season. |
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Cookware from the Earth
Many conventional pots and pans leach metals, such as aluminum or steel, into your food. A great gift idea for people who love to cook is ceramic pots or healthy earthenware. Other good choices are porcelain or stainless steel cookware. The best thing about healthy cookware is that it’s a present that someone can enjoy and benefit from for many years. Green Gift Certificates If you are the kind of shopper who doesn’t like to drag around packages, you can still send or give a perfect green gift in the form of a gift certificate. You can give someone a gift certificate for dinner at a health food or organic restaurant, a natural food store, a green cleaning service, or an online company that specializes in green products. This way, you are allowing them to choose what kind of green products they want! Green Books, DVDs or Audio Programs There are many informative and educational books, CDs and DVDs on the market about the environment and going green. If the person on your gift list might not appreciate an educational book about green lifestyles, find something in the natural world that they do appreciate –like a favorite animal, plant or part of the world– and find a book with lots of great photos that tie in with environmental issues. Perfect Green Gifts for Kids For children on your gift list, there are many options for helping young minds soak in the green message. You can find entertaining yet educational books that teach kids about environmental issues. There are stuffed animals made from recycled materials. You can even find games, puzzles and lab kits that are geared towards green problems facing the world. Pure Water Filters Water filters come in tons of varieties. Everyone drinks water, and most people need to drink more than they normally do. Water filters are also a way to cut down on disposable plastic water bottles. You may also want to throw in a good sized reusable easy to carry water bottle that they can fill up every day. Green Electronics High tech gadgets can be green too. You can find solar powered calculators, long-lasting light bulbs and flashlights without batteries, for starters. Speaking of batteries, a good gift for someone with an iPod or other portable device is rechargeable batteries and a a battery charger. Disposable batteries are an environmental nuisance, and if disposed of improperly are terrible for the environment. These green gift ideas will hopefully spark your imagination. The list of green gifts to give is almost endless, once you start thinking about it. |
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Tags: gift of green, giving green, going green, green gifts, green presents
In addition to replacing disposable alkaline batteries (AA, AAA) with rechargeable kind, consider all the cordless electronics that get their power only from rechargeable batteries: laptops, cell phones, power tools, electric toothbrushes, electric razors, GPS, digital cameras, camcorders, etc… Very few of us can go through a day without using a laptop or cell phone. We depend on these to keep us mobile and in touch. These can be recharged up to 1,000 times and last between 2-5 years. But eventually they will no longer be able to hold a proper charge.
All those batteries and more in cordless electronics can be recycled for free through the nonprofit, http://www.call2recycle.org.
There are also many retail and manufacturers who offer electronic take-back/trade-in programs where the old electronics has a redeemable value to trade in for a gift card. Either find a reputable electronics recycler or one that will give you a trade-in value for your old electronics when upgrading to new greener models.
I enjoy giving live plants as gifts. People generally enjoy receiving them as well. Live plants say so much more than cut flowers, or any trinket that will be forgotten. I like flowering trees or shrubs like apple or crab apple’s. Either left in a pot or planted in the yard, they keep giving year after year with flowers, fresh oxygen, and life.