The quality of True Love <3A Valentines Enviroment

V Day War

No matter how Valentine's Day makes you feel, whether you get warm and fuzzy inside or experience bouts of nausea, one thing is sure about the highly celebrated, somewhat dreaded holiday: it's pretty bad for the environment.

It’s All In The Paper

Just how bad V-day is for the environment requires us to take a good, hard look at the numbers: more than 124 million people in the United States celebrate Valentine's Day. Looking at paper gifts alone, those millions of people buy 36 million heart-shaped boxes and 180 million greeting cards. All of that adds up to an exceptionally large amount of waste and that does not even include the 198 million roses purchased, or any of the wine, champagne, chocolates, and any other food and drinks consumed.

How Many?

Carbon Dioxide Killer

Sadly, Valentine's Day's recorded waste has serious, negative impacts on the environment and causes more damage to planet Earth than you would think. All of the products purchased and consumed by lovers, spouses, crushes, and whomever else, causes more carbon dioxide emissions than driving around the entire world almost 4,000 times. Furthermore, all of the leftover paper and packaging from V-day products weighs more than 4,170 hybrid cars.

Hope For The Environment

However, there are some great ways to counter the appallingly negative environmental effects of Valentine's Day. You can try hand-made or recycled gifts, cards using recycled paper or paperless cards, organic and fair trade goods, or sustainably produced items. So while it seems that there is no love for the environment on the holiday of love, there is still some hope out there for those hopeless environmentalists.

Cheers To A Healthy Happy Valentines!

Buy organic and fair-trade chocolate. If you haven't considered the economic and environmental impacts of buying sustainable chocolate. There are ethical issues all along the chocolate-making route, from growing cocoa beans to harvesting and import price. Check out Fairtrade Canada's guide to buying chocolate. Some local favorite's include ChocoSol (try the dark and creamy chocolate pucks—mix them with hot milk and a splash of honey and you are tasting the food of the gods) and Camino (the 67 percent cocoa mint bar is probably the best thing to happen since people started adding stuff to candy.)

Buy Organic

Buy organic and fair-trade flowers. Roses are red, violets are blue, it's bad for the earth, and for you, too. (See what we did there?) There are a host of issues with buying that dozen roses at the convenience store for 10 bucks. do you know where they were grown? Do you know the farmers? The Council of Canadians compiled a report on the detrimental "rose effect" on several communities. Try finding a local dealer of eco floral at Sierra Eco.

Enjoy You Chocolate

Chocolates Chocolates are an indulgence

enjoyed by many and among its many benefits is its ability to enhance moods which is probably why we enjoy gifting it on Valentine’s. Chocolate history reveals that chocolate drinks provided energy and enhanced creativity and most recently dark chocolates are found to contain antioxidants which protect our health.  

Natural Chocolate

The Cocoa Tree

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2wMkpLOYOo

Try A Green Valentines

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-exLlZBTgqo

With Green Love

Happy Valentines dayxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Live~Love~Laugh

The EndProduced By Sheri Kramer