• 'tis The Season To Give Holiday Discounts 2019

Give them a gift they’ll love and save 20% while doing so. You can send them a sweet treat to make their holiday delicious. Save 10% on food and non-alcoholic beverages. Offer not valid with other promotional offers, Happy Hour, on booked events, Valentine’s Day or New Year’s Eve. Savings not to exceed $100.

1. Spoof booking sites and email offers proliferate, with travel deals that look too good to be true and probably are. Letter from Santa scams: A custom letter from the jolly old elf makes a holiday treat for the little ones on your list, and many legitimate businesses offer them. But so do many scammers looking to scavenge personal information.
2. ‘Tis the season for holiday gifting and holiday shopping scams. FBI Philadelphia is reminding the public to be vigilant against fraudsters looking to steal your money.
3. LITTLE ROCK, Ark.- Too many Grinches trying to steal away the holidays; with scammers taking more than they will ever give. The FBI is warning shoppers to look out for increasingly aggressive and unorthodox scams designed to steal away money and personal information by criminals.

This holiday season of giving, receiving, feasting, and decorating can come with some additional baggage—trash baggage, that is! Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, the amount of trash produced in the United States increases by an estimated 25%—that’s about one million extra tons of garbage each week. Annually, Americans discard an estimated:

• 38,000 miles of ribbon, or enough to wrap around the planet (with some left for a bow);
• $11 billion worth of packing material;
• And 15 million used Christmas trees.

When this holiday material is discarded it can be headed to landfills, where, far from making things merry and bright, it undergoes bacterial decomposition, which produces “landfill gas”: a mixture of predominantly greenhouse gases including methane, carbon dioxide, and water vapor. The methane in particular makes landfill gas stand out—landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States. Methane, a greenhouse gas with an impact on climate change more than 25 times greater than that of carbon dioxide, is the second-most prevalent greenhouse gas emitted in the United States from human activity. Carbon dioxide, the other major ingredient in landfill gas, is the first.

This year, consider trying out a new way of celebrating the season to help reduce your holiday waste:

• Give a gift that needs no packaging—an experience! Offer to take friends or family on a trip to a public land, or offer to pay the entrance fee for a national, state, or local park you know they would enjoy.
• Each year, an estimated 2.6 billion holiday cards are sold in the US, or enough to fill a football field 10 stories high. Instead of a traditional card, consider an e-card or a telephone call to friends and family.
• When shopping for holiday foods, decorations, and gifts, use reusable shopping bags. These can be stronger than traditional single-use bags, protecting your purchases and reducing the amount of paper and plastic distributed by vendors.
• For an eye-catching gift tag, cut off the front of any holiday cards you received in the previous year. The card’s decorative front will spruce up your gift, and you can write the recipient’s name on the blank side.
• Save on gift wrap by reusing intact pieces from the previous year, or by opting for a more durable material that you can use again and again, such as a cloth bag.
• Once it’s time to pack up the decorations, set aside your Christmas tree for recycling. Many areas collect trees in the first few weeks after Christmas to be mulched and used for water conservation and weed control.
  

Interested in more practical environmental information?Sign up for the NEEF Connect.

Sources:

• CalRecycle. 2013. “A Season for Giving, Nor for Discarding.” California Department of Resources and Recycling Recovery. Accessed November 13, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20150102131618/http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/publiced/holidays/NoWaste.htm
• CalRecycle. 2014. “ ‘Give Green’ by Decking the Halls with Less Waste This Year!” California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery. Accessed November 13, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20151218112831/http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/publiced/holidays/
• NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. 2015. “The Cosmic Distance Scale.” NASA. Accessed November 13, 2019. http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/features/cosmic/earth_info.html
• Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. 2015. “Reduce Waste Generated During the Holidays.” Accessed November 13, 2019. http://www.epa.state.oh.us/pic/facts/holiday.aspx
• The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. 2014. “About CFAES: An after Christmas Story: Tips for Reducing, Reusing, Recycling Holiday Trash.” The Ohio State University. Accessed November 13, 2019. http://cfaes.osu.edu/faculty-staff-resources/cfaes-monthly/archives/tips-for-reducing-reusing-recycling-holiday-trash
• Stanford Buildings & Grounds Maintenance. 2015. “Frequently Asked Questions: Holiday Waste Prevention.” Stanford University. Accessed November 13, 2019. http://bgm.stanford.edu/pssi_faq_holiday_waste
• US EPA. 2019. “Landfill Methane Outreach Program: Methane Gas.” Accessed November 13, 2019. https://www.epa.gov/lmop/basic-information-about-landfill-gas#methane
• US EPA. 2019. “Landfill Methane Outreach Program: Basic Information.” Accessed November 13, 2019. https://www.epa.gov/lmop/basic-information-about-landfill-gas
• US EPA. 2019. “Overview of Greenhouse Gases: Carbon Dioxide.” Accessed November 13, 2019. http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html
• US EPA. 2019. “Overview of Greenhouse Gases: Methane Emissions.”Accessed November 13, 2019. http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html

• in Announcement
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My friend Vina Lustado asked me to share this great opportunity with you. Please share it with others if you choose.

Vina says: Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about how can I give to others, especially those in need during these challenging times. I don’t have a lot of financial resources right now (not easy being a small biz owner, as many entrepreneurs know), but I DO have other resources that may help… So here’s what I can offer:

1. RETREAT IN NATURE:

Free two night’s stay in my little cabin in the woods near Yosemite. I take so much joy in giving the experience to be still and quiet in nature. Guests tell me the creek has magical powers! And Yosemite is so pretty in the snow – with no crowds! Learn more: www.airbnb.com/h/vinascabin

2. ONE HOUR CONSULTATION:

Free one-hour consultation on living tiny. I have a plethora of knowledge on this subject. Need help designing a tiny home or small home? Confused about the legalities of tiny homes? Want to buy property to place a tiny home(s)? I have so much information to share! Learn more: www.vinastinyhouse.com/consult/

3. TINY HOUSE PLANS:

Build your own tiny using one of my designs. I have three different ones to choose from Sol Haus (my own tiny house), Light Haus, and Sol Pod (my tiny office). Choose any for free! I love empowering others to build their own. Learn more: www.solhausdesign.com/tiny-house/

Are you in need who can benefit from any of the above? Or do you know someone else in need? Here are the details:

1. Please email me at vina@solhausdesign.com with your contact info (or who you’re nominating) and WHY. Please try to keep it to 500 words max.
2. Or send a DM video to my Facebook page Sol Haus Design
3. The deadline to receive email or video is December 20th.

'tis The Season To Give Holiday Discounts 2019

Should you or your nominee be chosen, I will contact you directly to coordinate details on sending your gift. – Vina