20 Ways to Go Paperless this Holiday Season

According to the EPA, from Thanksgiving to New Years Day, household waste increases by more than 25%. Added food waste, shopping bags, packaging, wrapping paper, bows and ribbons - it all adds up to an additional 1 million tons a week to our landfills. The one thing we touch every day is paper and this is especially so during the holiday season.

Fortunately, this holiday season more and more people are expanding eco awareness in their holiday celebrations in an entirely different way. That's because more people are going green this holiday season, choosing to make their holiday as eco-friendly as possible. One way is to reduce paper.

Why go paperless? As a green living consultant in the area of creating sustainable lifestyles, I share some of the benefits:

Increase organization and productivity
Eliminate storage space
Reduce costs
Improve disaster recovery protection for legal documents
Reduces your environmental impact

We offer paperless suggestions in our eco friendly consulting; see how many you can incorporate this holiday season. Better yet, encourage your friends and family to go paperless too!

Planning a Holiday Party? Try sending an e-card or using an online party planning tool to invite guest; remember to share your party photos online.
Another option: Send recycled-content greeting cards to reduce the amount of virgin paper used during the holidays. Remember to recycle any paper cards you receive.
Eliminate paper in your holiday celebrations by using only reusable dishes, utensils, and glasses; replace paper napkins with cloth napkins; replace paper towels, use kitchen towels or at least use recyclable paper towels.
Sport canvass or reusable bags for shopping and eliminate paper bags.
Skip the wrapping paper. Creative ideas for great wrapping paper alternatives include gift bags, boxes or fabric, or if you just can't give up the wrap, upcycle old paper products such as newspapers, magazines and even maps as "wrapping paper."
Buy gifts that don't require wrap. Donations and volunteering are just some ideas.
Gifting a new cell phone? Recycle cell phones that are no longer used. Environmentally responsible choices include Charitable and Environmental Solutions for e-waste.
Replace your paper planner with an electronic one. PDA's: Blackberry and smart phones all have contact management capabilities. Take it a step further and close the reuse/recycle loop and purchase a used one from eBay or Craig’s list.
Use your iPhone to live green: take eco action now and check out these top 5 green apps:
• Carbon Tracker: This GPS-enabled carbon footprint application allows users to calculate their carbon footprint from daily commuting, business trips or vacations. Users can also create goals for maximum emissions in a month, then monitors progress. Great for expanding eco awareness in your daily life.
• iRecycle, makes it easy to find recycling locations anywhere in the U.S. Find places to drop-off your old cell phone or other items, get directions and find out what else they accept.
• GoodGuide: Use this app to find out what’s in 75,000 common household products. Reviewers praise the level of detail in the GoodGuide database as well as its ease of use.
• Greenpeace Tissue Guide: Research brands of consumer paper products to find the greenest tissues, paper towels, and toilet paper.
Read your books online: subscribe to e-books.
Online e-zines, blogs, and PDF versions of printed magazines are becoming more and more popular, both as a replacement for and a supplement to printed publications.
Utilize social media tools (Facebook, digg, StumbleUpon) to share information: favorite websites, cool videos, and even gift ideas.
Learn 50 new ways to use your iPod for more than music.
Get a zoombox! Zumbox is the first all-digital online alternative to the traditional paper postal service, and if you have a street address, you can already start using it. Note, Zumbox is not email. It is based on permanent street addresses.
Commit to all online banking: statements, bill, and payments.
Reduce junk mail (just think of the numerous catalogs received during the holidays).

Incorporating sustainability concepts of reducing paper contributes to living a sustainable lifestyle that not only helps you become better organized and more productive, but also helps reduce the largest portion of our waste stream.