Whole Story

Thanks for joining me for our second "Zero Waste Holidays" blog post. (Check out our inaugural post on holiday cards.) North Americans produce 25% more waste during the winter holidays, which equates to 25 million extra tons of garbage going to the landfill. The Whole Foods Market Green Mission Team has gathered our favorite tips to feature on this blog throughout the holidays to help us all reduce our load. Our customers are some of the greenest folks around, so please share your tips with us too. Hopefully we'll help each other discover new and creative ways to live lighter on the planet this holiday season. Holiday Lights Yes, we know that lights are festive, but you can find ways to save money and energy while turning on the twinkle.

• Trade in your conventional strands of lights for energy efficient solar or LED lights - 90% more energy efficient and they last longer.
• Don't risk falling asleep without turning out the lights - use an appliance timer to turn lights off at the end of the evening.
• Place lights in strategic locations instead of all over everywhere. You can reduce by using just a few strands.
• Turn your lights off just a little earlier than you did last year.
• Recycle old strands of lights by removing and discarding old bulbs and recycling the strand as scrap metal.
• Companies like HolidayLEDs.com will not only recycle your lights for you, they will also give you 15% off your order of anything on their website when you send them lights to recycle. I like their suggestion of coordinating with your friends and neighbors to collect old lights to send to them for recycling.
• Check out Earth911.com to see if there is a holiday lights recycling facility near you.

Now, it's your turn. What are you doing to cut the energy cost on holiday lights this year?