Have yourself a merry little GREEN Christmas 2012 (cont')

As the previous blog post starts to get too long, here continues my next 3 green Christmas ideas - Cheers!

Green Christmas Idea #4 - Re-use, re-wrap and re-create?!

"In Hong Kong, 13,800 tonnes of wastes are disposed of in landfills every day. Every year, around 4 billion dollars are spent on operating the three landfills."- Green Power (2012)

Regardless how much tax money has been used for treating wastes, I am more concern how much longer our landfills could carry on with more and more solid waste dumped into them every day and when the time will come to break ground for a new one...How to save our pitiful landfills? One of the 3 powerful Rs - reuse - is an approach, yea it sounds like a cliché but...we know it works to save the environment, right? Let's get inspired by some Christmas reuse ideas below~

Plastic bottle tree (Credit:InspirationGreen.com)

|| Reuse ideas ||

1) Reuse newspaper, interesting magazines, and other paper products as wrapping paper
2) Reuse old Christmas decorations instead of buying new ones, too boring? Touch up and modify them then - you never know where your creativity would lead you to

3) Create your own decorations with personality - Turn materials like old newspapers, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, paper/ plastic bags, scrap papers...as many as you could name into fun and shiny pieces of art crafts to decorate your home, you wouldn't be able to find any other decor more personalized than this :) Feel free to imagine and have fun as the sky is the only limit.. :)

Ornaments from scrap materials (Credit: eismontdesigns)

Stockings from paper bags! (Credit: blog.rockscissorpaper.com)

Paper wreath (Credit: www.recyclethis.co.uk)

Light bulb snowman (Credit:Waleska Vasquez)

Green Christmas Idea #5 - Reduce - for not having to actualize the "WALL-E" story

Recalling the animated film, WALL-E, a love story between 2 robots started in the trash filled planet earth...an abandoned planet by human. It's an inspirational, educational story but pretty sad tho...I don't know if kids understand why human would have to live in the outer-space while in hope that the earth would become habitable again. Think about your day, from the beginning to the end, how much do you consume and dispose, how much waste in within could possibly be avoided?

WALL-E in the future earth looking up at the stars (Credit: wallsfree.com)

|| Facts ||

What you use	What it does to the environment
ALUMINUM FOIL	A large amount of electricity is used in manufacturing foil
BANANA AND ORANGE PEELS	As food decomposes in a landfill it generates harmful greenhouse gases such as methane
JUICE BOXES	Inorganic waste may take hundreds of year to decompose, or may not decompose at all
PAPER BAGS AND NAPKINS	It is estimated that 17 trees are cut down for every ton of non-recycled paper
STYROFOAM	Styrofoam is very difficult to recycle. The best way to protect the environment is to stop using it

Source: global stewards

|| Reduce - Refuse ||

During festivals like Christmas, while we think it's unavoidable to use wrapping papers for gifts, disposable cutleries for parties, or have superfluous desire to buy clothes and presents, we could indeed make light of our stress to the landfill by taking "reduce" in action. Below are some old clichés so boring even to me...but the point is, are we actually putting them in practice?

NO	YES
NO throw-away bags	REUSABLE carrier (cloth bag, lunchbox)
NO plastic wrap, foil or styrofoam	REUSABLE containers
NO single-use cartons or cans	THERMOS for drinks
NO paper napkins	CLOTH NAPKIN to wash and re-use
NO plastic forks and spoons	SILVERWARE to wash and re-use

Source: global stewards

Green Christmas Idea #6 - Less guilt consuming wines - Recycle the bottles! 
Wine is a crucial element to a enliven a Christmas dinner, bottle after bottle of wines leaves behind...apart from a tipsy to drunk party are...GLASS BOTTLES!! I feel always feel bad about throwing glass bottles into the trash bin, but where to find a recycling bin in the streets and which bars or restaurants recycle glass bottles? 

Green Glass Green is a local NGO, and an activist in glass recycling initiatives. Their glass-collection campaign has successfully allied with many bars and restaurants in Hong Kong, and they also set up glass collection points to collect glass to be recycled and re-generated into "Eco-Blocks" (glass bricks used for road paving, which also have the ability to remove air pollutants!). 

So check out the bars / restaurants that recycle glass bottles when you plan your night out, and bear in mind the collection points where you could dump your bottles after visiting the 7-Eleven bars ;)  

 

Continuing my last 4 Green Christmas Ideas in the next post :)) Excited Christmas is coming close!