A lot of people are changing their daily habits and adopting more eco-friendly practices - and holiday gift giving is no exception. Unbeknownst to the average consumer, many of the seemingly normal gifts are starting to look a little green.
Putting more green into your holidays means more than leaving less impact on the planet. It’s about choosing gifts that are made with durable, quality, non-toxic materials. Luckily, this often leads to quirky, one-of-a-kind items that say as much about your creative leanings as your Earth-friendliness. Giving green can mean everything from reusing gift wrap and gift bags (or do-it-yourself stenciled paper bags or comics pages), to putting all-natural lotions and beeswax candles in stockings and solar-powered electronics and vintage jewelry under the tree. Of course, if you choose to actually give green — as in plants! — that’s OK, too. (In that case, we recommend philodendron, Boston fern, peace lily and English ivy, all of which are known for their air-cleaning qualities.)
-For the gadget geek: The eco hard drive
-For children: Non-toxic toys and games
-For the outdoors enthusiast: Sustainable skis and snowboards
-For the chief household officer: Creative kitchenware
-For the hipster/fashionista: Reclaimed bags and accessories
-For the eco-economic (under $25): The waterproof wallet
Watch a video that shows step-by-step how the women of WomanCraft, a social enterprise of Deborah’s Place, turn shredded office paper into wedding invitations, stationary and holiday cards. After watching the process, think about trying it out for yourself or coming by the studio to see the papermaking process firsthand.
For further reading, check out last month’s post about the non-profit organzation creating new beginnings for women in Chicago.
With new suggestions about how to be eco-friendly popping up every day, the average person may start spinning in circles.
One expert may be encouraging people to switch to CFL light bulbs. Another environmentalist may urge everyone to buy hybrid vehicles. The next guy is suggesting solar panels.
Going green is great, but where does someone start with little time and energy?
A handful of Chicago women are providing an easy answer - stationary, wedding invitations and holiday cards all made from recycled paper. Women who are current and former participants and tenants of Deborah’s Place, Chicago’s largest provider of supportive housing exclusively for women, are employed.
Here’s the environmental impact calculated by WomanCraft:
Conserve a tree has a lot of great information and links to help you learn more. From this site we’ve borrowed a useful generalized calculation: 1 carton (10 reams) of virgin office paper = approximately .6 of the average felled tree. Based on these numbers we’ve worked out the following for WomanCraft:
1 WomanCraft Hollander beater (the machine that turns our shredded paper to pulp—ours is bigger than most) holds approximately 5 reams of shredded office paper (determined by weight of bagged shreds vs. weight of standard reams), so:
1 WomanCraft beaters-worth = approximately 1/3 of a tree
We estimate that we make about 2 beaters-worth of pulp each week, 48-50 weeks a year. Using the conservative number, we run our beater 96 times a year, so we create recycled paper equivalent to about 32 trees a year, and keep about 1000 pounds of paper from going to an incinerator or landfill!
WomanCraft, Inc. is a wholly-owned social enterprise of Deborah’s Place. Purchases help not only the environment, but also women working to create new beginnings.
Fashion Focus Chicago 2007 invites people to watch students of the International Academy of Design & Technology create an outer-covering made of all recyclable materials. ABC7 provides full detail of Chicago’s 3rd annual Fashion Week.
