10 Green Gift Ideas for Christmas

That time has come again when you have to go out and find a Christmas gift for your family and friends. Things are made a bit easier nowadays with the vast amount of options that internet shopping provides. Here is my list of 10 good green gifts that can be bought on Amazon.

1) Compact fluorescent light bulbs or CFLs make a good green present because they greatly improve the energy efficiency of a home. Earthmate CFLs last 13 times longer than incandescent light bulbs and use 75% less electricity. Be sure to check about light fixtures and to remember that the wattage system is different when buying CFLs.

2) Low flow showers reduce the gallons per minute rate of water used showering from 5 to 2.5 or even lower. This is achieved without affecting the power of the spray or the ability of the shower to clean. Air is sucked through the shower wand to add volume to the water.

3) An energy saving power strip or smart strip is a good way to turn off unwanted stand by lights and digital displays. A master device is plugged into the blue socket and important devices that need to stay on such as the modem and the telephone are plugged into the red sockets. Anything plugged into the white sockets are completely turned off when the master device is shut off. The master is normally a computer or the TV.

4) Maggie’s Soap Nuts make an interesting present. They are made from Chinese soapberry nuts. They contain natural saponin. Simply throw a couple of nuts in with a load of washing and you can clean your clothes without polluting the environment.

5) Bamboo charcoal is incredible stuff. Anything made from bamboo apart from bamboo rayon can be considered environmentally friendly. Bamboo charcoal can be used as an air freshener and to lower humidity levels in a home. Bamboo charcoal also emits both negative ions and far infrared rays that both improve the health and happiness of people.

6) Buying seeds, plants or trees makes a great green present. As well as being actually green any type of flora will add to the environment’s ability to convert carbon to oxygen and also provide natural habitat. Another green gift idea is to get someone a book about green roofs. These reduce heating and cooling costs and will no doubt become common sights in many cities in the future..

7) A good green gift is a solar powered Tiki torch for the garden. They take in solar power during the day and give off free light at night. Solar powered Tiki torches are ideal for people with dark drive ways and for people who enjoy have evening garden parties.

8) For fathers who like to potter around in the shed why not get a solar powered LED shed light? Solar energy is clean energy that does not increase the carbon count in the atmosphere and also reduces home electricity bills.

9) For the family canine a great green gift is coco chips for dogs or coconut oil for dogs. Coconut is an organic and renewable resource. Coconut oil helps to detox a dog’s digestive tract, deodorize the fur, give the fur a shine and helps a dog to lose weight. Best of all dogs love the taste of coconut oil.

10) An expensive green gift for students and those who do a lot of writing is an ASUS bamboo laptop computer. The bamboo casing on the computer reduces the use of plastics by 15%. It also makes the laptop look cool.

These are only 10 green gift ideas. There are many more out there. It just needs a bit of thought and imagination. All of the environmentally friendly presents mentioned above are available for purchase on Amazon. Buying through Amazon can be considered green because they transport many objects at the same time and thus reduce the carbon costs of transportation. A final thought (and play on words): it is only by being green that we are going to get white Christmases in the future