Go Greener, Australia

Last time I went through some ways you can choose greener Christmas gifts. Today I’m listing my favourite green gifts! All of these products are things I’ve either given, received, would like to give or would like to receive myself.

I’m a bibliophile, so my favourite place to do Christmas shopping is in a bookstore. Kids love Graeme Base’s books (remember Animalia?). He’s written a couple with environmental messages: Uno’s Garden is a story, a maths puzzle and shows us how we change our environments (and how there’s always time to fix our mistakes!); The Waterhole is a counting book with a story about sharing our common resources. Younger kids like the beautiful pictures by Base, and as they get older they enjoy the secret puzzles hidden inside.

For adults who want to read about how to live sustainably, I recommend Greeniology by Tania Ha. I was going to write a review of it, but I’ve lent it out to people who are enjoying it too much to return it! It’s a fun and practical guide for the millions of Aussies living in our cities who want to reduce their environmental impact.

Getting away from the bookshops and into the great outdoors a little… when my nephews and nieces are a little older, I’m going to adopt an endangered animal for them at Perth Zoo. Other ideas include buying paw prints and going on behind-the-scenes tours, with profits going to help the zoos rescue endangered species in our region. But for now I’ll be getting my nieces some Anamalz instead.

While we’re still outside, you can try a fair-trade football; Sigg re-useable water bottles; or a wind-up torch and emergency phone charger .

Around the home I like the Ripple gift pack (the one with the duckie that’s a shower-timer!); Stuffit reuseable bags in a 3 pack; or Candelas for energy-efficient mood lighting (we received these as a wedding gift and love them!)

In the kitchen, I’m a big fan of seasonal cooking. A book of recipes organised by ingredient or season rather than by meal plan can be a winner - it makes it easier to find something to do with that unusual vegetable you picked up at the markets. I like Stephanie Alexander’s The Cooks’ Companion (another wedding present), but there’s plenty of them out there.

And you can’t go too far wrong with food. There’s a huge range of organic, fair-trade and sustainable chocolates, coffee, tea, wine, olive oil, native jams and spices and so on - a quick trip around your local supermarket will find you some, and most eco-shops have a great range.

Finally, if you’re short on time but want to make sure you give a nice gift, have a look at Biome’s hampers. I won one earlier in the year, and was really impressed with it! They’ve got a huge range, with food, pampering and kids versions, and will deliver around Australia.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 5:00 pm and is filed under celebrations, gifts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.