How to Recycle & Reuse Holiday Cards

Video Transcript

"Hey you want a way to put a little bit of more green into your holidays, well listen up. First thing you do let's talk about holiday cards. When you go out and purchase a holiday card look on the back to see if it says made from post consumer recycled paper. The reasons that, that is a good term to look for is because that means that that card was made from papers that were put into a recycling program and reprocessed and made into greeting cards. Because if it doesn't say that, it's very likely that card was made from tree fibers, from trees that were harvested from forests and then parts of them were ground up and made into cards. Wouldn't you rather that they were ground up from recycled paper. Because our forests are habitats for animals and for people to walk through and enjoy. So remember that term, post consumer recycled paper on the back of your holiday cards. Now there's some other great things you can do with left over holiday cards. One thing that I do is I cut off the part that had the little greeting in the front and I save the front. Then you can put that on a present and write to who ever it is to and then from well me of course. And you can put that in there as a little gift attachment. Or if you really want to try something different you can affix that to a piece of blank paper and make a new card. Hey why not, it's a great way to reuse cards and it's better for the environment. Another great thing that you can try doing is try alternatives to wrapping your presents with you know the old red, green, blue, purple wrapping papers that you buy at the stores. Well you can do things for a lot less expense. For example you can find old butcher paper, or you can find newspaper, the funny papers are very colorful, that's what I use to wrap presents with. And if you want to personalize it, well get some felt pens and draw up the colors, have some fun with it too. It's a lot more fun then going out and buying something that's already made, I mean back in the old days that's probably how they use to do it. They didn't buy ready made wrapping paper. They'd make their own. And have fun with it. Another alternative instead of wrapping paper well put your present in something like a reusable cloth bag, then that can be part of the present and whoever you give it too, can take that reusable cloth bag and use it when they go shopping at grocery stores again and again and again. I'm mean that's part of what recycling is about. Again and again and again. If you would like more information on how to put a little bit more green back into your holidays check out the California EPA website, it has all kinds of wonderful information that will help you live a little more greener during the holidays."