A traditional holiday song dreams of a white Christmas, but conscientious celebrants dream of a “green” holiday season by appreciating and respecting our limited environmental resources. No matter what holiday you celebrate, you can help reduce the staggering increase in waste Americans create between Thanksgiving and the New Year.

If each of us takes a few small steps to reduce the waste we produce during the holidays, we’ll save a tremendous amount of resources, energy and landfill space while celebrating in style!

Some ways to reduce holiday waste include:

• Use e-cards for holiday greetings and party invitations. It’s a great way to share photos and keep in touch, and it saves paper and postage.

• Decorate a living or reusable tree.

• Consider giving zero-waste gifts, such as music or sports lessons, memberships to gyms, musical series or museums, tickets to a sporting event or concert, or coupons for babysitting, home-cooked meals, etc. Donate to the recipient’s favorite charity in his or her honor, or commit to volunteering with that organization.

• Buy recycled content gifts, and put them in reusable bags or wrap them in colorful comics.

• When entertaining, use washable utensils, plates, glasses, napkins and table coverings. Decorate with potted plants (that guests may take home) or candles, rather than disposable decorations. Be sure to have recycling containers readily available where your guests can easily deposit recyclable cans and bottles. If you have leftover food, send it home with guests in reusable containers or donate it to a local homeless shelter or soup kitchen.

• Decorate your house with LED holiday lights that use 90 percent less energy, and save up to $50 on your energy bills.

• Collecting food scraps and food-soiled paper for composting can reduce the amount of organic waste related to holiday feasts and treats. Holiday meal preparation can generate potato peels, fruit rinds, meat and cheese scraps, coffee grinds, eggshells, and other food scraps. Most Waste Management residents in the Puget Sound area can toss these food scraps, as well as food-soiled paper like paper napkins, paper towels and pizza boxes, into their food/yard carts for composting.

Recycling opportunities are also plentiful during the holiday season. Remember that paper packaging is recyclable – cardboard boxes, non-foil gift-wrap and tissue paper all go into your recycling cart.

With a little imagination and commitment, we can use this holiday season to create new traditions that help preserve the environment.

Katie Salinas is the communications manager for Waste Management, Inc.