Stop Junk Mail. Be Eco Friendly. Do Good. The GreenDimes Blog

A Cool Green Gift for the Music Fan in Your Life

Here’s a new spin on recycled gifts (not to be confused with re-gifting, which may be a topic for another day).  Designer Jeff Davis rescues vintage LPs and makes them into hip coaster sets! Each coaster is cut from the center of an actual vintage LP record and has the original label intact. The coasters are protected from moisture with a clear mylar seal. Each set includes a clear case and 6 coasters in a wide variety of artists/bands/music styles with a diverse selection of label colors. Jeff’s fun, recycled creations have been featured in numerous museum exhibits and magazines throughout the world.

 

By rescuing discarded records and creating them into fascinating works of functional art, he also has created vinyl bowls (shown here) and snack trays which can be used for dry snacks or just for a cool decoration.  What I really like is that you can even choose your preferred music genre: rock essentials (artists such as The Police, Eric Clapton, YES, Santanna), crooners (Nat King Cole, Sinatra and Dean Martin), jazz, country or 70s/80s pop.

Whether you need a gift for a music fan, for an eco-geek (that would be all of us at GreenDimes), or for the person who has everything, these recycled gifts are a great idea. You can purchase these recycled "art pieces" at the Modern Artisans web site.

~Melissa

Easy Green Christmas Tips

Green Holiday Rush Guide

No, I’m not talking about telecommuting your Christmas toast or “family-styling” your silverware.  No, these are easy green tips for Christmas:

Shop Last Minute online. Check out Discovery Channel’s website treehugger.com. Specifically their Holiday Guide’s Top Green Gifts for 2007 (shh, we’re in there)

Inflate those tires! It’s a biggie:

[Christmas is a big travel day] X [properly inflated tires] = [tons of saved gas] (that’s a multi-variable Calculus education people)

Carpool. Yeah, he’s annoying, but pick up Uncle Lester on the way. You can give him a jigsaw puzzle in the backseat and every time he’s about to finish, veer into warning bumps in the break-down lane.

Eat organic, buy local, reuse grocery bags.  I know, ham-flavored pesticides are hip new Christmas trend, but stick with the organic stuff.

Use cloth v paper napkins – Do you really want a see-thru paper napkin over Uncle Lester’s lap when he decides his belly needs a little “breathing room”

Play. In general, the more you’re outside sledding, the less energy you’re using inside watching the big screen.

Have your own Macy’s Christmas Parade! Okay, now I’m being silly.

Now for those who say, “hey, that sounded  like your Easy Green Thanksgiving Tips post” um, it is. But sacrifices have to be made for our new GreenDimers, folks.

Happy Holidays, (you too, DMA)

-Sanjiv

Sending your holiday cheer?

If you are not reading this, it's probably because you are standing in line at the post office to mail your holiday packages. Trust me, I know. I was just there (although only to get my bills in the mail).

The USPS has estimated that 20 *billion* cards and gifts will be sent this holiday season... and man oh man, that's a lot of mail. Albeit the kind of mail you do want, the kind you anticipate all year, the kind that sends you running to your mailbox in excitement. You mean you don't run to your mailbox in excitement?

But if today passed you by and now you have missed the mailing deadlines promised for Christmas delivery, never fear... GreenDimes is here. You can always send someone our service online, even print out a gift certificate if you are feeling crafty. I told the woman standing in front of me about us, just after the mail clerk had to break the news that her gift would not, in fact, be delivered by Christmas. She was psyched. And you should be too!

Click here to get your last-minute holiday gifts taken care of. No lines. No nasty mail clerks.

Your mailing maven,

Kendra

Eco Toys for Tots

Green Holiday Rush Guide

Hey, when the kid wants that action figure, I'm not here to tell you no.  Here's just another alternative.  Imagiplay has a whole series of earth-friendly toys.  Their toys are generally made from chemical-free rubberwood or fast-growing sustainable bamboo.  The manufacturers are paid a fair wage, and provided a safe environment to work.   Imagiplay is approved by Co-Op America and Toys with Integrity.  Some of the toys were a little pricey, others were not.

-Sanjiv   

Green up Your Hanukkah

The Festival of Lights

Who’s inviting me to Hanukkah? (all 8 days I mean) Delicious latkes, taking home all the chocolate gelt in the game of driedel, I'm there.

Quick little dreidel factoid I edited from Wikipedia:

Some say the dreidel game was devised by the Jews to camouflage that they were studying the Torah, which was outlawed. The Jews would gather in caves to study, posting a lookout to alert the group to the presence of soldiers. If soldiers were spotted, the Jews would hide their scrolls and spin tops, so they thought the Jews were gambling, not learning.

Now you can green up your Hanukkah by using beeswax candles, buying organic/local foods, and including inexpensive green gifts for one of the days, but really I’m looking for the invite.

Happy Hanukkah!

-Sanjiv

Holiday ‘Green Stock’ Stuffers

Daily Holiday Green Rush

Only watch the 1st dry minute, after that you'll get totally parched

-$anjiv

Yep, I was one of those guys, the yellow tickets in my hand, the green jacket over my collared shirt, the screams from my mouth to buy and sell, bid and offer, blah and blah.  And if I, as a trader on Wall St., can go green, so can you.

“Green stocks?”  What about my returns? (profits in layman’s terms)  Apparently, now green stocks are doing just as well, or better than industry averages.  Please consult your financial advisor before making any move.

Re-Gifting Your Wrapping Paper

Daily Green Holiday Rush Series

Little me, decked out for the holidays

True story. One year, while celebrating Christmas, my parents convinced their 6-year old Sanju (that’s me!) to be “nice, nice” with the wrapping paper. I begrudgingly did, and then I noticed something strange. My aunt and my mom were neatly folding up the used wrapping paper.

Why? I asked myself. There’s no way they could get that back up to Santa. Next year, the paper looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure. Heard the echo of  “nice, nice,”but I didn’t listen. I ripped away. However, my mom collected the shreds, and my aunt pulled out tape and blew steam out of her iron.

Following year, my wrapping paper looked a patchwork of prior year’s wrapping , albeit ironed. So I decided to mark it with an ‘X’, and sure enough, next year, the same faded ‘X.’ And that’s when I knew there wasn’t a Santa Claus…

Okay, I'm a part-time fiction writer (though I have seen her fold wrapping paper).  Here's the real solution to recycled wrapping paper.  Introducing papermojo.com (I think Kendra wrote about this before, which means I’m recycling posts.) They make their wrapping paper from things like waste banana fiber, so if your kids are the paper-eating type, at least they’ll get their potassium.

I checked out papermojo.com, little too fancy for me. Where’s the Santa’s, the reindeer, the holiday bling? In that case, I would google ‘recycled wrapping paper’ and get what you need.

Btw, anyone who sends me a pic of a present wrapped in Junk Mail gets a free tee.

-Sanjiv

Don't want to cut down another tree?

You are going to 'be green' this holiday season and refuse to cut down a tree, right? Ok, me too. So here's an awesome alternative if you have some (ok, lots) of extra time on your hands.

If you live in Venice's Murano Island, world famous for it's beautiful glass, you make your tree from glowing, colorful, shiny glass, that's what.

This is a picture of the world's tallest glass Christmas tree, hand sculpted by master glass blower Simone Cenedese.

Enjoy your Sunday, and get those green decorations up!

Kendra

Rockefeller Tree Lights Go Green, and So Can You

Daily Green Holiday Rush Series

Mm.  I miss New York.  Hard to beat skyscraper snowball fights.  And this year is especially great because the Rockefeller tree went green. 

How?  The 75-foot spruce is adorned with energy-saving LED lights.  The star isn't lit at all, it's a set of 25000 crystals.  All told, tree will consume 2000 kilowatts less per day than previous years.

They used other green methods too. They used a hand saw instead of a power saw, and all the lumber is going to be used in Habitat for Humanity projects.

Now it’s your turn.  According to AskPablo.org, a 100 String Light:

LED                         vs            Traditional

Price                      @ Costco -$8                      Probably less                     

Energy                  2 watts                                 42 watts

Lasts                      200,000 hrs                         Depends*

*How many times have your bulbs burned out

I told you Pablo was good.  Now I don’t need to tell you that eventually you’d be paying less over time.  And if you’re a Griswald type from the Vacation movies, you’d be paying way way less.

-Sanjiv

Naughty or Nice?

Ahhh, the holidays.

Makin' a list? Checkin' it twice?

ForestEthics sure is... for catalog companies, that is. They have published a list of companies who are naughty and nice in hopes of encouraging all of us to save the forests for our dear (or deer) friends, the reindeer (or caribou as it were).

Have a look. Pretty good stuff. Hey, I like any rating system based on Caribou (nice), Fruitcake (checking twice) and Coal (naughty).

They know if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!

-Kendra