DENVER — The holiday season is right around the corner and you know what that means – buying the newest and greatest and then throwing the old stuff away.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the amount of household garbage in the United States tends to increase by 25% between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day (a difference of four to five million tons).
Buying gifts
"Some basic reasons why we generate so much more waste in December than we do at any other year starts with product packaging, there's so much packaging that comes with products even more so these days as we are getting products mailed to us instead of shopping locally," said Marti Matsch, deputy director at Eco-Cycle, located in Boulder.
According to Matsch, a lot of the work can be done beforehand. For example, there are many alternatives to wrapping paper. Wrapping paper in itself is non-recyclable since it consists moreso ink, rather than paper. Try using a reusable gift bag, or brown craft paper/newspapers.
Alternatively, you may want to consider gifting an experience, rather than an item.
"One thing that your gift recipients may not think of to get for themselves, might be like a gym membership or an experience doing something they've always wanted to do or an experience with you or getting a service from you that you're very good at," said Matsch. "[Things] like cooking or organizing or putting photos together and all those kinds of skills that you may have that might be extremely useful, especially to the very busy gift recipient. "
Reuse these items
- Fabric
- Reusable gift bags and boxes (remove the handle prior to recycling)
- Drawstring pouches and pillowcases
Recycle these items
- Craft wrapping paper and brown paper bags
- Recyclable papers (like newspaper, magazine pages, posters, etc.)
Avoid whenever possible
- Wrapping paper (non-craft paper)
- Mylar wrap
- Ribbons, bows, and gift tissue paper
- Gift bags containing foil, Mylar or glitter (keep for reuse, throw away when ripped)
Do NOT throw these items in the curbside recycle bin
- Holiday cards (embossed with foil, or non-paper material)
- Dark-colored envelopes (light colored envelopes are recyclable)
- Packing peanuts
- Bubble wrap
- Plastic bags (grocery bags, Ziploc, trash bags, etc.)
- Tissue paper
- Electronic and appliances
- Batteries
- Cooking oil
- Styrofoam
- Holiday string lights and extension cords
You can find places to drop-off certain hazardous items for recycling using Call2Recycle’s locator or search on Earth911, which the EPA suggests.
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