14 DAY TRIAL // The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides a list of tricks and trips that will make our Christmas spirit even more eco-conscious. Its ideas mainly guide us to water preservation through easy-to-follow steps, also helping us minimize the ecological footprint of our winter shopping session.
Officials from the agency are aware that preparing a meal and cleaning endless piles of dishes after a holiday generally requires a lot more water than usual.
EPA's Water Sense program aims to minimize the waste, indicating that if each American family tries to reduce water usage by 10 gallons on just Thanksgiving Day, this strategy would help conserve up to 1 billion gallons annually.
This initiative has been widely embraced as 4,000 products we might find in stores have already received the WaterSense label for their noticeable efforts of saving water, energy and money.
Moreover, such campaigns rely on easy-to-follow measures. Remembering to turn off the tap when we're washing dishes represents an action that preserves up to 2 gallons of water every minute.
While talking about the gifts we are so eager to buy and receive, EPA encourages us to skip the excess wrapping. We might indeed spoil the surprise, but this decision would be in favor of the environment.
In order to keep more trash out of the already crowded landfills, we could turn to recycled paper or old wrappers we should find around the house, not as fancy as the shiny new ones, but definitely much more eco-friendly.
While decorating the Christmas tree, one must have in mind the Energy Star label on LED decorative light strings. They require up to 70% less energy than their traditional rivals and display an improved quality.
EPA guarantees that this kind of lightning strings are much more sustainable and shock-resistant, a purchase even your grandsons will be able to enjoy.
Furthermore, the perfect gift definitely has to possess a ‘Design for the Environment’ label, which shows that its manufacturing and usage did not have a harmful impact upon the environment.
Last year, the American buyers who decided to purchase DfE labeled items reduced the usage of toxic chemicals by approximately 600 million pounds (272 155 422 kilograms).