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The American Chemical Society (ACS) and ACS Green Chemistry Institute are encouraging consumers to “make your holidays more environmentally friendly” and “nudge society a little further toward sustainability” by reducing “your own personal carbon footprint.”

The world’s largest scientific society shares tips around the following:

(1) Recycling (forget new--recycle old paper and ribbons; use local Christmas tree-to-mulch programs after the holidays)

(2) Reusing (find creative wrapping materials such as newspapers and children’s artwork instead of new paper; consider purchasing a live Christmas tree that can be planted later)

(3) Repurposing (old shopping bags = new gift bags; think “regifting”)

(4) Rethinking (buy organic, local foods and gifts to avoid energy consumption associated with shipping; embrace e-cards; don’t leave holiday lights on all night)

I can add a few others:

- Consider upgrading your holiday lights to the new LED lights, which save up to 80%-90% energy and last many years longer than those old strings. Take advantage of after-Christmas sales if your budget can’t handle the purchase right now.

- Talk to your friends about skipping the usual $10-15 gift exchanges and instead give to a charity in the person’s name or as a larger “in honor of our friends” donation. I know one friendship circle that made a trip to Toys R Us together to shop for children in need instead of for each other. It was fun and led to stories about the toys and games that meant the most to each of the friends when they were young.

- Rethink teachers’ gifts. This region, like many others, is out of control when it comes to teachers’ gifts. My mother was a teacher for years, and she used to lament the money wasted on ornaments and useless do-hickies that she received each year when all she really wanted was a nice note of thanks. So this year, after taking a deep breath, my husband and I decided that instead of giving $10 gifts to each of our children’s nine teachers, we would donate in all of their honor to the Central Asia Institute to send several poor Afghan girls to school for a year (Isn’t that why teachers go into the field anyway? Because they want to help children become successful and prosper? Isn’t that better than a cup or two of coffee at Starbucks?). We did the same with our work colleagues, supplementing with a few baked items as well.

There are so many other ideas. Anyone else want to share?