Green Gift Giving Ideas

Green Shopping Guide
Where Possible:

Buy gifts that are sustainably grown, harvested or recycled or made from reused materials, as well as biodegradable materials and recyclable materials
Buy energy star rated products
Use rechargeable batteries
Look for products containing nontoxic and organic materials
Use less packaging or no packaging

Consider buying products that incorporate recycle, reduce and reuse:

The Green Guide. This Guide answers many questions regarding personal and household environmental issues and recommends safe and healthy products.
Plenty.
OnEarth.
Organic Gardening

But copies of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth
Plant a tree in honor of someone.
Consider purchasing a Night spotting scope (to watch nocturnal animals either in your backyard or while camping)
Send your kids to camp so that they can learn about the great outdoors. Alternatively, you can donate to the Fresh Air Fund, a program that sends city children on summer vacations to the country.
Buy some binoculars and become a bird watcher.
Buy holiday wreaths, made of birdseed, as food for the birds in the winter months.
Make baked goods like cookies and cakes and package them in usable containers.
Buy a bat house from Bat Conservation International.
For environmentally friendly ways to get around time, consider folding bikes or scooters.
Purchase Solar charger for Ipods
Buy LED holiday lights (they save up to 90% of the energy used by regular mini lights and last 100 times longer)
Purchase a wrap-n-mat sandwich holder (a reusable wrapper that doubles as a placemat) www.kids-table.com

Consider Giving Gifts that Benefit Charities

www.donorschoose.org With this site, you purchase a gift certificate in an amount of your choosing, then a certificate is sent to your recipient, who then selects the project to donate to.
www.habitat.org You make a donation and then your recipient receives a greeting card detailing your gift.
www.arborday.org for a donation of $6.00, a tree is planted in your recipient’s honor and you are mailed a greeting card to send to your loved one.
www.kiva.org your donation benefits an entrepreneur of your choice (i.e. a fisherwoman in Somalia) Once your “loan” is repaid, you can either withdraw your money or reinvest in another venture.
www.doctorswithoutborders.org
www.heifer.org Your gift of livestock or plants helps fight poverty and hunger within the United States and aboard. Gifts, such as a share of a heifer or a share of a goat, may be pooled together to help an entire community.
www.greenbeltmovement.org Your gift helps organize rural women to plant trees.
www.architectureforhumanity.org This organization seeks to improve living conditions by facilitating long term, locally developed building solutions to post-disaster reconstruction.