Holidays Archives | The Environmental Center

5 Things to do This Thanksgiving to Honor Indigenous Heritage

November 21, 2022

It’s the week of Thanksgiving… …which has many of us wondering how, and if, we should still be participating in the holiday as it was presented to many of us (generally white Americans) as children. Collectively, we are becoming more knowledgeable now about the historical accuracy of the birth of Thanksgiving, as described by writer […]

“Green Drinks” Celebrates Latinx Heritage Month With Upcycled Piñatas!

October 10, 2022

2022 has been exciting, as we have been able to get back to gathering in-person for our various events: Earth Day, the Green Tour, Power Hour, and one of our favorites — the Green Drinks series! Green Drinks is an international concept that brings people together to learn about sustainability efforts. Here in Central Oregon, […]

6 Tips for a Low-Waste Holiday Season

December 17, 2021

Create memories, not waste this holiday season! Check out these 6 tips for a low-waste holiday season. According to the EPA, American household waste increases by more than 25 percent between November and the New Year – contributing an additional 1 million tons a week to our landfills. As you might know, the Knott Landfill […]

Wrap it up: we’re talking about the holidays.

January 4, 2021

Holidays happen all the time. So does gift giving. These tips are great for the great, grand holiday season we tend to celebrate in December each year, but they also work for thinking about gift giving year round. Birthdays, for example? Single-Use Wrapping Paper Alternatives Reuse your paper! One local family has been reusing wrapping […]

Recycle your Holiday Tree

December 28, 2020

As our Deschutes County Knott Landfill continues to fill up (it is anticipated to be full by 2029), we want to do our best to keep what we can out of it. And that includes your holiday tree! Trees can be turned into compost or mulch for reuse rather than rotting and decomposing into methane […]

Use the WHOLE Bird!

November 18, 2020

I don’t know about you, but my Thanksgiving plans were thwarted by Kate Brown’s newest COVID-prevention orders. My outdoor buffet-style gathering of 7 from 6 different households is no longer ok. Sigh. And we already bought the turkey. In the spirit of #nofoodwaste, in honor of the life that was taken to feed me and […]

A few thoughts about waste, awareness, and November.

November 9, 2020

Imagine your perfect 4th-Thursday-in-November holiday scenario. What does it look like? In the year 2020 (an election year, at that), the economy isn’t doing great and many people have lost their jobs due to a global pandemic. It’s unsafe to travel and gather in large groups. And we are in the midst of the biggest […]

3 Tips for a Low Waste Halloween

October 8, 2020

Halloween! Such a fun fantastical holiday when you can really be whoever you want to be: Storm from the X-Men? Willy Wonka? Or popular and scary Freddy Krueger? Well, even scarier might be the incredible amount of plastic waste generated during this holiday. One study estimated that the UK tossed over 2,000 tons of new […]

Rethink Waste Over the Holidays

December 5, 2019

It is estimated that between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, more than 1 million tons of additional waste is generated EACH WEEK nationwide. And that doesn’t even take into account all the waste and resources used upstream and around the world to create all the new stuff people buy this time of year. The good news […]

Presents that Require Presence

December 16, 2018

In a meeting recently I heard about a wonderful gift idea. A jar filled with 365 slips of paper, each with its own memory, given to a parent. It turns out, memory jars are really popular projects on Pinterest and have a variety of applications. What are other gift ideas like this, that are really […]

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Category: Holidays