There is a big push to start thinking green this year around Christmas. One of the more familiar ways to do this is to purchase an artificial tree. If you haven't been looking lately, the newer artificial trees are far from the pipe cleaner style familiar from years past. They now have very realistic features, minus the pine tree smell, sap, and brown needles all over the floor. Be prepared they are still very inconvenient to store after Christmas, as they are still large even after being broken down.

www.catalogchoice.org is a new website that has been discussed on National Public Radio. According to their website this is a free service that allows you to opt out of any Catalogs that are currently scheduled to be delivered. This potentially could save quite a bit of trees over not only Christmas but over whole holiday season. Below is the environmental facts from the Catalog Choice website:

Over eight million tons of trees are consumed each year in the production of paper catalogs.
Nearly half of the planet’s original forest cover is gone today. Forests have effectively disappeared in 25 countries, and another 29 have lost more than 90% of their forest cover.
Deforestation contributes between 20% and 25% of all carbon pollution, causing global climate change.
More than one billion people living in extreme poverty around the world depend on forests for their livelihoods.
There are other significant environmental impacts from the catalog cycle. The production and disposal of direct mail alone consumes more energy than three million cars.
The manufacturing, distribution, collection and disposal of catalogs generates global warming gases as well as air and water pollution. Reducing the number of unwanted catalogs that are mailed will help the environment.- source is www.catalogchoice.org