Avoid Mall Madness!

Let your fingers do the walking. E-commerce is the wave of the future but remember that it is not necessarily waste-free. Choose items that won’t be excessively packed for shipping. Also select retailers close to you to minimize pollution that arises from shipping items over long distances.

If you shop by mail order catalogue, remember to cancel the ones you don’t need. Did you know that if every catalog recipient cancelled 10 of them, it would reduce that household’s trash by 3.5 pounds per year? (If everybody did this, the stack of cancelled catalogues would be 2,000 miles high?)

Plan your shopping in advance by building your gift idea list through online browsing. Instead of making multiple trips to the mall, start by perusing thousands of ideas for green, organic, and fair-trade gifts through websites such as Co-op America’s National Green Pages. Consolidating your shopping trips saves fuel (and aggravation), and you’ll avoid those last minute frenzies when you won’t have time to make careful gift choices.

During the nation’s busiest shopping season, bring your own shopping bags. Not only does this simple step prevent adding to landfills, but it has the added benefit of reducing our dependence on foreign oil, since plastic bags are petroleum-based.

If you forget your own tote bags, try to consolidate as many purchases into one bag as possible rather than getting a bag at each store. Try to use only paper bags, which are recyclable, biodegrade more readily than plastic, aren’t as harmful to wildlife, and aren't petroleum-based.

When buying gifts you will send by mail, pick items that are easy to ship and won’t require excess packaging. When purchasing shipping supplies, be sure to choose cornstarch packing materials. These packing “peanuts” biodegrade readily because they are made from plant materials. Traditional items such as foam packing peanuts, bubble wrap, foam sheets and foam-in-place, are all produced in environmentally unfriendly ways, are not biodegradable, and contribute to the accumulation of greenhouse gases. Another particularly nasty aspect to these materials is that they all contribute to our reliance on oil and natural gas.

A great shipping option is to use plain, unbuttered popcorn as packaging material. Place a small note in the box that tells the recipient that the popcorn can be used to feed wildlife.

If you receive packages with these materials, be sure to reuse them, as opposed to throwing them away. In addition, many local mailing centers will accept extra packing materials. Call the Plastic Loosefill Council’s Peanut Hotline at 1-800-828-2214 for the names of local businesses that reuse them. (Stores often offer discounts for returning packing materials like cartons and boxes.)

With a little planning and a little forethought, this holiday season can be the most successful and fulfilling holiday in a long time. AND you'll feel so good about your conservation efforts that you might even put something for yourself under the tree!