Add some 'green' to your Christmas holiday with these EcoChi tips from author Debra Duneier.
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Skip the wrapping paper and repurpose items to house your gifts. Baskets, tins or scarves create a unique presentation and you may also be saving a tree.
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Want to save more money? Set the timer for your holiday lights for an hour less every day and watch the savings add up. What a great gift to our planet too!
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Update your holiday lighting to include LED light strings. They use 80% less electricity and can last for 200,000 hours.
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Use your china or stoneware dishes when entertaining and stay away from plastic dishes and utensils. Plastic leaches chemicals into your food and when you throw it away it takes up to 500 years to break down in nature. It does not decompose, even though the authors states that in her book. Plastic does degrade via light and air but it does not biodegrade.
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Skip plastic and toxic decorations and keep it natural. Use branches, pine cones, flowers or herb clippings.
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Tree farms absorb carbon dioxide, help protect water supplies and offer shelter to wildlife. Unfortunately, many Christmas trees are disposed at the curb and ultimately finish up in a landfill. Be sure to recycle your Christmas tree. Earth911.com offers a list of recycling organizations near you. Recycling offers many benefits including saving landfill space, the creation of mulch and used as sand erosion barriers on beaches. Many councils in Britain also offer recycling for Christmas trees and you can also rent a potted tree via Little Tree Company.
EcoChi: Designing the Human Experience, is the new book by Debra Duneier. For more information or to purchase a copy of EcoChi, visit ecochi.com.
Debra Duneier is the Founder and President of EcoChi, LLC, and Living Home by Debra LLC, author of EcoChi: Designing the Human Experience (http://www.ecochi.com), a Feng Shui Master Practitioner, an accredited LEED® Green Associate, Certified Eco-Designer, and a New York State licensed real estate broker. Debra currently sits on the advisory board of the Sarut Group, which includes Pylones USA and The Tea and Honey Store. She is a member of the US Green Building Council, Women Builders Council, the Real Estate Board of New York, the Retail Marketing Society, the American Management Association’s Sales and Marketing Council, the International Feng Shui Guild, The Green Finance Committee of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce and is a founding member of the Women’s Leadership Exchange’s LEXCI and the Belizean Grove.
© 2011
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