Tips for a Healthy Planet

Small changes can really add up and benefit our environment. Have you found healthy home practices that work for you? Please send them to Laurie Eldridge for addition to this column.

Let’s have a Green Holiday Season! The Cuyahoga Solid Waste District has many suggestions at https://cuyahogarecycles.org/greening_holidays. Some of their recommendations include:

• Use energy-saving holiday lights. LED lights use 90 percent less energy and save your family up to $50 during the holiday season. The Solid Waste District collects broken, burned or tangled strings of holiday lights for recycling. Drop them off at 4750 E. 131st Street in Garfield Heights; see the Solid Waste District website for details. Some stores such as Home Depot, Lowe’s and Walmart collect lights during the holidays; check with your local store.
• After the holidays, store greeting cards for next year. They can be used for gift tags, decorations, labels and other projects. If you want to recycle them, include them with your curbside recycling, but do not include cards with foil, ribbon, glitter or photo cards.
• Wrapping paper and boxes that are 100% paper can be added to your recycling. However, if the wrapping paper has foil, or is sparkly or shiny, put it in the trash since it cannot be recycled. Also do not include foil, plastic coating, ribbon, tinsel, bows and glitter.

Are you interested in joining a group that works on projects to help the environment? The Unitarian Universalist Ministry for the Earth (UUMFE) meets the second Sunday of every month after church and coffee hour on Zoom. Contact Pam Schenk if you would like to attend.