7 Ways to Give Green
The holiday season has finally rolled around, and if you are still looking for gifts for a special someone, why not give green? It is quick, easy (mostly because it is done over the internet), and is the emotional equivalent of anti-guilt medicine. So, below are a few of my favorite green gift choices.
1. Carbon Offsets: Buying a carbon offset is like hiring someone to clean up behind you. Companies take your money and use it for reforestation, protection against deforestation and sometimes, investment into renewable energy. It takes only a Google search for “carbon offsets” to get a bazillion results.
2. Local Food: There is a very popular saying going around that is: “buy local, think global.” This means that you should support your local community, while still being a citizen of the world. (If you want me to get into more detail on the subject, please leave a comment, and I will definitely do it.) So, buy them a gift card for the local organic/health foods store, or maybe even some Farmer’s Market credit. Whatever you can do to support organic, local food is the best.
3. Public Transit: Buy someone a good supply of bus/subway tickets, because it is good for people to use the public transit system. Carpooling/mass transit in general is always better, because you are using the same (or a slightly greater) amount of energy to transport 100x the amount of people.
4. Reminders: Get your loved ones power-usage monitoring devices, like the famous KillAWat. These little devices let people know how much energy they are using, and therefore gives them more reason to move towards being green. They also help educate people about power usage in general. It is good to be farmiliar with something to really fight at it’s roots.
5. Personal treatment: Anything that doesn’t require major amounts of equipment, transportation or chemicals is always a good choice, so why not go for the personal treatment option? This entails a massage, yoga class, gym membership etc.-but make it local! If the receiver needs to travel a lot to use the gift, it is automatically not green. Also, if you are sending the person to a spa, make sure that they don’t use cosmetic chemicals. There are tons of spas that concentrate more on yoga, massage therapy and general health watching.
6. Electric Paper: If you know someone who subscribes to three news papers and eight magazines, offer them an e-book reader, or online newspaper subscription. Think about all of the paper you would save! Online subscription service is available for comics, and many other magazines as well. This gift really depends on the person, because some people can stand e-books and online newspapers, but others can’t, so you need to take that into consideration.
7. Green Kits: Buy your special people items to help make their lifestyle more environmentally friendly, for example: compact fluorescent light bulbs. They last for years, and use a lot less energy than incandescents. A lot of the time, people need a little help to get headed in the right direction, and you can be that push. You could really help that person get it together, because the time is now!