Go Green: Recycle, Plant a Christmas tree

How do you celebrate your Christmas? Christmas is time for giving. It is also time for excesses that causes negative impacts on environment. Increased wastes which result to increasing volume of landfills and carbon emissions are happening each year.

Different people in different places celebrated Christmas in different ways. But as we can observe, this Christmas is more different from some other Christmas spent years ago. What do you think is the reason?

During Christmas, almost everyone is busy decorating their houses. All kinds of stuffs and decorations were collected and placed on every corner of the house. Why do we gather those things and spent much money when we can do recycling? 
Time magazine published its own ways on how to recycle and use alternative things to decorate houses on Christmas. Here are some ways and tips which everybody can use during Christmas: Lights. Choose LEDs (Light-emitting diodes) to minimize power consumption. Gifts. Handmade gifts are best choice for greener gifts. Gift wraps. Use recycled-paper wrap for your gifts. Ornaments. Recycle leftover aluminum shavings to make a nice tree ornament. Wreaths. You can make a silver bell wreath out of old cans. Candles. Using candles is another way to conserve electricity. Use only renewable and biodegradable materials for decorations of houses. More at www.time.com/time/magazine

Some people and organizations in other places have their own style of recycling this Christmas. Danny Seo, author of “Simply Green Giving” also recommended using old things to wrap and decorate gifts. Artist Jeff Clap used discarded aluminum oxygen canisters from Mt. Everest as decorative bells. While residents of Portland, Oregon bought a potted or balled Christmas tree (roots still attached) and replanted it in their backyard after Christmas. The same thing also happened in the Urban Forest of San Francisco who rented nontraditional trees such as Southern Magnolia and Strawberry and replanted them in city streets.

In places locally like San Isidro, some people did not put any decors in their houses. It is because they have to minimize spending money and go natural.

On the other hand, although some people celebrated green Christmas but there are people abused it. What can you see on streets after the celebration? There’s tons of garbage, Christmas gift wrappers and other decors scattered anywhere.

And who we are going to blame of thousands of deaths happened in Cagayan de Oro, Iligan and nearby provinces in Mindanao just before the Christmas? It happened because of illegal logging and abusive practices of some people. Local residents were caught unprepared when typhoon Sendong hit their region. Is this the mistake of the weather bureau because of their failure to give appropriate warnings and forecasts? Or it is on the plenty of uprooted and cut trees and logs seen on the news believed to be the reason of massive flash floods?

Local governments of the region blamed each other and questions are being asked as to why indiscriminate and illegal logging was permitted in that area that has destroyed the green cover and mountains. Although President Benigno Aquino has ordered an investigation into these aspects but what should the government do to prevent such calamities to happen again?

Well, this problem is inevitable and could happen again and again if not solved or prevented. What we have to do is start anew. Let us plant trees and call it our own Christmas trees. Not only that we have our tree to decorate every Christmas but also a hope for greener world every year. #