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The City and County of Denver unveiled its annual lighting display on Nov. 30. It is one of Denver's longest running traditions and is the premier lighting display in the region. The City & County Building is decorated with floodlights and 2,000 linear feet of LED rope lights.
Holiday Wishes from Greenprint Denver
December 14, 2007
This holiday season, Greenprint Denver challenges you to let your holiday lights shine! Help us darken the night sky so our homes' festive lights truly sparkle across the city.
You can participate by thinking about your use of lights indoors. Remember to turn off lights when you leave a room, make sure your office or store lights are turned off when you leave work for the day, and turn off extra lighting outdoors that might compete with your holiday display. Help us make the night sky dark. By following these simple tips, we can save energy community-wide during this holiday season, and save money on our energy bills.
To go a step further, you can purchase LED holiday lights, available at all major retail stores. LED holiday lights can help you save significant energy costs over conventional holiday lights. The City and County Building purchased LED rope lights for its holiday display last year, and we have seen an 86% savings!
You can also change your indoor lights to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). Changing even one light bulb in your house to a CFL saves $15 a year in energy costs and reduces your carbon dioxide emissions by 150 lbs. If every house in the United States replaced even one light bulb to a CFL, we would reduce our carbon emissions by 90 million pounds, or the equivalent of taking 800,000 cars off the road. CFLs shine brighter than incandescent bulbs, so you can buy lower wattage bulbs and still light up your room when you need to -- and the bulbs last 10 times longer.
**Stocking stuffer or small holiday gift idea: buy your loved ones a compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL)!
Thank you.
Our best wishes for a wonderful holiday season,
Your friends at Greenprint Denver
Tips for a Green Holiday Season
Food
- Buy local and organic products for you holiday feast. Organic food tastes better and it's kinder to the earth. Thirty percent of the fossil fuel used on farms goes into the making of fertilizers. Get greener by buying items grown or produced within 100 miles and you'll reduce the amount of diesel fuel needed to ship food.
- When cooking with your oven, don't open and close the door to constantly check on your food, as the temperature will drop 25 degrees each time you do. The same thing happens in reverse when you leave the refrigerator open while you are unloading ingredients.
- Use dishes, silverware and cloth napkins instead of disposable utensils and paper products. Recycling and waste reduction means fewer materials enter the city's landfill, thereby reducing emissions of methane, a harmful greenhouse gas.
- Get creative with your leftovers. Turkey can be turned into Turkey Noodle Soup or Turkey Tetrazini. Mashed potatoes are just steps away from becoming Sheppard's Pie. The Internet is full of great recipes designed to help you waste not!
Tree
- Recycle your Christmas tree. You can find local tree recycling centers through Earth 911 and the National Christmas Tree Association. Remember to not use tinsel or spray your tree with fake snow, as tinsel and white trees cannot be recycled. Another option is to use a live, uncut tree with roots intact that can be planted in your yard after the holidays.
Energy
- Replace your old-fashioned holiday lights with LED (light-emitting diode) lights. LED lights use 90% less energy than conventional lights. The technology uses a fraction of the power to produce brighter, longer-lasting lights that are less expensive to operate. LED lights do not produce heat so they are much safer to use on trees.
- Use a timer on your holiday lights to avoid keeping lights on all night.
- Lower your thermostat when you are not home. Or, install programmable thermostats. Programmable thermostats are more convenient and accurate than manual thermostats. They also improve your home's comfort; contain no mercury, save energy and therefore save money on utility bills.
Gifts
- Bring your own shopping bags! Bring reusable bags with you on shopping trips to reduce the amount of trash produced over the holidays.
- Select gifts with minimal packaging or those packaged with sustainable materials.
- Send E-cards instead of traditional holiday cards to save paper.
- Bows, bags, fabrics, newspaper comics, magazines and decorative boxes can be used for gift wrap. These items can also be used for holiday decor, and reused every year. If you don't feel like reusing your wrapping for gifts, run it through a paper shredder and use the result as colorful packing material.
Donate
- Clean out old or unused toys and donate them to charity. One man's trash is another man's treasure.
- Consider donations instead of gifts. Many of us have all the things we could ever use. Making a donation in someone's name is a great way to honor the spirit of the holidays, without generating waste.
