However, consider all the giftwrap, plastic packaging in which it is merchandised, cardboard tubes, ribbons, and ribbon spools that end up in landfill. Although some communities have recycle depots that will reprocess this garbage, many do not. Here are some eco-friendly tips for wrapping gifts.
You do not have to purchase fancy gift boxes. Instead, scrutinize your home for items that are usually trashed or recycled. You can turn things like paper towel tubes, coffee tins, DVD jewel cases, shoeboxes, and even old hardcover books into great containers for presents.
Save advertising flyers and the colored pages of your daily newspaper. They make interesting giftwrap.
Wrap with brightly colored beach towels. Your gift recipient gets two gifts!
You can decorate brown paper bags or black-and-white newspaper pages with potato stamps to create unique giftwrap. The stamps are easy to make. Cut large potatoes into halves and carve designs into the cut surfaces. When finished, dip the designs into food-safe water-based paint or food coloring and stamp them onto the paper. When you are finished, be sure to put the potatoes in your compost bin. This is a fun activity that can involve the entire family.
You can also decorate brown paper bags and newspaper pages with spatter painting. Cut shapes out of newspaper and place in a pattern on the page you wish to decorate. Dip an old toothbrush into food-safe paints or food coloring, then scrape across a small piece of screen to create paint spatter. The color will speckle all areas of the paper except those that you protected with decorative shapes. You can let everything dry, and spatter more than once to create interesting effects.
Search the local department store or Internet to locate food-safe or biodegradable transparent tape and glue. Use them for wrapping instead of regular tape.
You can make ribbon out of 100% wool, 100% cotton, or strips of old clothing cut on the bias. If you know how, try to knit, crochet, or tat decorative ribbon. Alternatively, plaiting several color-coordinated strands together produces a nice effect.
You can decorate the outsides of packages with decorative buttons, shapes cut out of egg cartons, or other items that might be destined for the recycle bin or trash. You can also crochet little snowflakes or flowers from 100% crochet cotton. The recipient can use them as Christmas tree ornaments, coasters, or window hangings.
You can turn old DVDs or CDs into large gift tags. Glue the printed sides together then decorate the shiny surfaces with whatever you can dream up. If you drill a small hole near the edge of each creation, your gift recipient can hang it as a Christmas tree ornament or sun catcher.
Be sure to include a little note with each gift. Let your recipient know that the giftwrap is something special just for him or her, and ask the person to recycle or reuse it.
(c) Copyright Kathy Steinemann: This article is free to publish only if this copyright notice, the byline, and the author's note below (with active links) are included.
Damage To The Environment
While the hysteria continues to mount about global warming all sorts of ?solutions? are being advanced and some are more harmful than others and some are even more harmful than fossil fuels!. For those that don't know, biofuels are alternative energy sources derived from living matter, as opposed to fossil fuels, such as oil, which are derived from nonliving matter. The most prevalent variety of biofuel is Ethanol made from corn and combined with gasoline into something called E85, which means it's 15% gasoline and 85% ethanol. However, the gasoline and ethanol is variable based upon the outside temperature so its more or less gas in the mixture depending on the time of year in most areas of the United States. During cold weather, more gasoline needs to be added to the mixture to ensure the fuel works properly, so E85 is at least 70% ethanol.
The fact that E85 needs 15-30% gasoline in the mixture is not the major problem, that factor is really not such a big deal. If everyone was using E85 and the use of gasoline got cut by 70% that would be a tremendous advantage. .
Here are some real problems with Ethanol In the next 20 years or so, the total population of Earth is predicted to increase to such a high level that a 50 percent increase in food production would be needed. By 2080, it would have to double. But the urgent movement to biofuels - allegedly good for the environment - translates in reality to a reallocation of fertile land to growing food for energy purposes.
New higher demand has already reflected by the significant increase in the prices of basic crops, including wheat, since 2005.
Biofuels have been heralded as a means of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions released by fossil fuels but recent research have been skeptical of their impact when all aspects, such as the use of pesticides and such on the crops, aretaken into account. Critics have been angered by the loss of tropical rainforests, which have been cleared to allow farmers to grow biofuel crops.
Laying waste to forest land has been calculated to account for roughly 18% of world greenhouse gas emissions and many environmentalists consider the practice of wiping out forest land for the purposes of growing crops for biofuel to be profoundly stupid.
So enough about ethanol from corn as a viable alternative energy solution. It ain't gonna happen!
But here is something that IS happening right now!
WATER4GAS is providing information for a nominal fee which car owners can use at home to put together a small device which instills hydrogen into the gas/air mixture that their car runs on.
What this does is make smaller particles out of the ones that the system uses as fuel. Therefore it is able to use much more of it.
With WATER4GAS you can reasonably expect to lower your fuel usage by 30-50% or even more. Those goblets "musta" been pretty "blankin'" big in some systems before. But with WATER4GAS they are made consumable so you can lower your fuel usage.
It also helps reduce emissions significantly.
This information has been purchased by over NINE THOUSAND people already and the percentage of happy customers is about 99%! So how about you?
Both Kathy Steinemann & Garko are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Kathy Steinemann has sinced written about articles on various topics from Travel and Leisure, Entertainment Guide and Book Reviews. Kathy has posted more articles about the environment and global warming at 1st Rate Articles. She also writes articles for. Kathy Steinemann's top article generates over 246000 views. Bookmark Kathy Steinemann to your Favourites.
Garko has sinced written about articles on various topics from Science, Culture and Society and Science. Learn how to increase power and save gas and how to run a car on hydrog. Garko's top article generates over 22200 views. Bookmark Garko to your Favourites.
Adverse Credit Mortgage Lenders This may include other geographical markets as the mortgage markets in the USA and EU seem to be running at full capacity