How to Give Eco-Smart Holiday Gifts

Living "green" doesn’t have to be tossed out with the leftover turkey bones. Keep those great sustainable living habits kicked into high gear by gifting back to Mother Nature this holiday season. Stop, breathe, and relax and gift wrap the circle of life for your friends and family.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Gift a worm farm. Red wigglers worms are the best composters. They eat just about all food wastes except for meat products. One pound of worms decomposes the average waste of a family of four. A multi-layered worm composting bin creates an odorless indoor system that turns leftovers into fertilizer for the garden and house plants. A quick internet search under worm farm, vermicomposting or red wigglers provides a wealth of information and product distributors. The worm woman site carries worm-a-way compost bins packaged with a pound of worms and the easy to use resource book "Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up & Maintain a Worm Composting System" by Mary Appelhof.
2. Gift renewable energy. Fight global warming this holiday by preventing six tons of carbon dioxide poisoning from entering our atmosphere. Your gift from Native Energy will help to slow global warming by investing in renewable energy projects. You can choose to give wind generators or farm methane. Native Energy is a majority Native American-owned enterprise.
3. Gift a community garden plot. Projects like Community CROPS in Lincoln, Nebraska, provide their low-income, refugee, and immigrant gardeners with free garden plots, seeds, plants, and the tools to grow pesticide-free food for their families. Contact your local community garden network and ask what they need most. Donate on behalf of your loved one. Promise to take them on a picnic to the garden during the peek of growing of season. Together, you can reap the harvest of this present. It will be great to witness the abundance of your giving.
4. Gift a goat. Heifer International Foundation combats poverty and hunger by giving livestock. For example, they gift one goat to a family that has gone through their training. The training not only teaches about raising a goat, but also focuses on budgeting, sustainable living skills, business and community networking. This transaction is called a livestock loan. The family pays off their livestock loan by giving an offspring to someone else in their community. Eventually, from one goat, an entire herd grows.
5. Gift a rented llama. The Wayfaring Traveler Ranch in Burlington, Wyoming, is a sustainable farm that specializes in llama treks and organic vegetables. The treks are three-day guided tours into the Tatman mountain range with your very own llama companion and a packed vegetarian lunch. Llamas have no more impact on the environment than deer. The Wayfaring Traveler Ranch also uses no gas-powered farm equipment. They are located an hour and half away from the east gate of Yellowstone Park.

Tips & Warnings

• Red wigglers love to eat newspaper and wrapping paper.
• Be sure that the community garden has a pesticide-free policy.