Dreaming of a Green Christmas

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Five herbal wreaths,

Four aluminum stars,

Three hand-carved animals,

Two sisal Santas,

And a recycled plastic jug tree.

For anyone seeking new, ecologically friendly decorations for the holidays, there have never been more choices to replace all those petroleum-based, non-degradable plastic trees and holly wreaths of the Industrial Age.

Not only is there a rich array of new ornaments, candles, luminaria, low-voltage lights and other items made from hand-blown recycled glass, hand-carved sustainable wood and hammered metal, in many cases they are providing essential income for artisans and cottage-industry entrepreneurs around the globe.

It’s about time. Since the Earth Day 1990 celebration boosted the environmental movement back into public consciousness, the issue of social responsibility sounds its drumbeat every holiday season, starting with the question of how to decorate the house.

The Christmas tree choice (artificial or real?) is always good for a December debate. And environmental groups can be counted on for a seasonal wave of newsletters offering tips for reducing holiday waste, such as the Environmental Defense Fund’s recent list headed: “EDF is Dreaming of a Green Christmas, Chanukah and Kwanzaa.” (Their suggestions include edible decorations like popcorn and cranberry strings that can later be fed to birds.)

In actuality, the array of eco-decorations springing up this season for an ever-growing pool of green consumers is considerably more sophisticated than the tried-and-true popcorn strings.

Not only has “recycled, sustainable harvested and organically grown” become the decorating mantra, “ingenuity, craftsmanship and design” are also being evoked. Melissa Kelley of Santa Rosa, a dedicated green shopper, says she is seeing a bigger variety this year than in the past.

“I got my first catalog of recycled-content products 10 years ago,” she said, “and it was a third of the size of the ones I am getting today.”

This year her first holiday order, from Harmony catalog, was for Christmas cards from recycled paper with evergreen seeds embedded, so the recipients can plant them and grow their own Christmas tree.

“I’d never seen that before, but I love the clever idea,” Kelley said.

She hasn’t shopped in a mall in years.

“It’s my philosophy that Americans tend to produce too much waste. It’s important to understand that paper doesn’t just appear--it comes from a tree that had to be cut down.”

Kelley symbolizes a changing attitude across America, said Alisa Gravitz, executive director of Co-op America, a Washington, D.C.-based consumer education group with a national membership of around 52,000.

“What we’re seeing in all of this is a steadily growing awareness among people that their choices make a difference,” she said.

She acknowledges that there’s no way to track purchases of eco-products among total spending on holiday decorations, which reached about $4.5 billion last year, according to Unity Marketing, a Manhattan-based marketing and research company.

But she attributes the rising popularity of eco-decorations to changing consumer attitudes. Not only are Americans increasingly concerned about core values in their lives, surveys indicate a growing “green mainstream,” in terms of social investing, organic food purchasing and other shopping decisions, she said.

One study, “The Integrated Culture,” for the Institute for the Noetic Sciences and the Fetzer Institute, identifies, as one of three competing world views, a growing segment of “cultural creative” consumers, who said they consider issues of social and environmental impact in their decision-making.

This segment “now includes almost 44 million people, or 24% of the adult population,” of the United States, Gravitz said. “In the 1970s, this segment was so insignificant you couldn’t even pick it up in a survey.”

She thinks consumers are starting to realize that even small choices make a difference.

“It’s important not to beat yourself up,” she added. “Every step you take that makes life better for the people on this planet helps.”

That’s the way Merri Whyte of Poway, Calif., sees it. When she puts up her tree this year, all she has to do is retrieve it from the garage and hang it on the wall.

Whyte gave up on big Christmas trees two years ago.

“We have a small living room and a big dog--a Rottweiler--and a tree was too much,” she said. “He would just walk through the room and it was a disaster.”

So last December, she bought a Wall a Tree from her friend Jill Duncan. It’s a one-sided artificial green Nordic pine with lights on a triangular frame that hangs on the wall like a picture.

Whyte decorates it with small wooden ornaments and some traditional family ornaments, and puts a small table underneath it for gifts.

“My husband and son like it, and so do I,” she said. “It’s easy to store, there is no maintenance, and we didn’t have to kill a tree. It’s perfect.”

Wall a Tree is a small business for Duncan, who wanted an environmental product and experimented for several years before coming up with recycled plastic.

“The trees are made from milk jugs, and that means they won’t be in the landfill,” she said. “These trees can be used forever.”

She introduced the novel trees (priced at $149 decorated and $99 with lights only) on an Internet Web site three years ago and hopes to expand to retail outlets for Christmas 2000.

“It’s such a new idea that people need to be able to see it,” she said. “We’ve sold a few hundred this year, but we think it has a lot more potential--you can hang it in a hospital room, behind a desk, in a lobby or anyplace where space is limited.”

Not only are the decorations more artistic, the general eco-promotional tone seems a little lighter this year as well.

“After all,” Gravitz said, “it’s kind of fun to shop. Anthropologists say human beings are like hunter-gatherers, and that’s why we like fixing our home and buying things for it.”

That seems to be the mood at Real Goods Trading Corp. in Ukiah, Calif., which for years was billed as the world’s largest supplier of alternative energy and environmentally “sensible” products.

This year, along with the usual low-flow shower heads and solar flashlights, its winter catalog features an array of holiday decorations, whimsical and beautiful.

President Mark Swedlund acknowledged the added emphasis.

“Basically we’ve gone out of our way to get items that are more fashion forward and more contemporary in design,” he said. Real Goods has expanded its “country store of the future” image to include a more versatile selection of home items, he said, recognizing that customers who are environmentally aware also have sophisticated taste.

Hand-crafted ornaments made of tin, recycled aluminum, wood and even banana fibers brighten their holiday decor pages, along with pottery and weavings.

“I call it stringing your politics on the tree,” explained Real Goods merchandising director Sydni Scott, who works with a network of importers called Aid to Artisans.

In contrast, Jon Clark’s Home & Planet in Bethlehem, Pa., is a relatively young home furnishings store that is combining environmentalism and fashion.

“I’ve taken my business a step beyond those earth stores that sell recycled paper and organic cotton T-shirts,” he said of the business he started three years ago. “I have 2,400 square feet of everything from dining tables to pictures.”

Although his merchandise is made from recycled products, organic cotton or sustainably harvested wood (from forests certified as environmentally well-managed), Clark likes to push the fashion aspect with the motto, “High style, Earth friendly.”

His holiday decorations include richly painted gourds, hand-blown recycled glass, icicles from aluminum cans, recycled glass menorahs for Hanukkah, and Star of David sun catchers.

Ellen Feeney is spokeswoman for Gaiam cq Inc. of Broomfield, Colo., a mail-order company whose Harmony catalog and Web site, which are a mainstay for environmental shoppers, feature an imaginative boutique of holiday decorations.

One example is a culinary wreath made from organically grown herbs and twined into a rosemary frame, to be used for cooking or as a fragrant decoration.

Their “holiday essentials” also feature hand-hammered ornaments and stocking hangers, made from used metal drums otherwise destined for landfills, sun catchers and candle holders from recycled glass bottles and hand-knit stockings for fireplace hanging.

Two of the most comprehensive green Web sites are sponsored by Co-op America. Their online resources, https://www.greenpages.org and https://www.greenpagesstore.com, feature an extensive range of environmentally and socially responsible companies and products that can’t be found in most shopping malls.

“It isn’t a matter of not shopping,” concluded Gravitz. “It’s a matter of making an environmental choice instead of a destructive one. We’re all about constructive solutions.”

Connie Koenenn can be reached at connie.koenenn@latimes.com.