Five Gadgets to Help Green Your Holidays

With the weather getting colder and winter on its way, we're looking forward to the warmth and cheer of the holiday season and the festivities to come. However glimmering lights and gift giving can quickly snowball into a hefty environmental footprint, so as you get set to deck the halls this year why not consider updating your holiday decor with some eco-friendly alternatives? From glitzy low-energy LED lights to high-tech recycled glam, read on for our top 5 gadgets to help green your holidays!


Everbright Solar Holiday Lights
These brilliant Everbright lights combine two of our favorite green technologies -- solar power and LEDs -- into a glimmering bundle of holiday cheer. Simply string up the tree or decorate your outdoor patio with these weatherproof lights and then place the photovoltaic panel out in the sun - a full charge will keep them twinkling for 20-40 hours, and a light sensor turns them off automatically to conserve energy.
$33 - $110 from Eco Source Shop

LED Motherboard Menorah
Celebrate the festival of lights this year with a high-tech modern menorah made from a recycled motherboard outfitted with nine glimmering light-emitting diodes. Designed by Roni Kabessa, this digital candelabrum is powered by a 9-volt battery and is outfitted with a discreet panel on the back that controls each of the energy-efficient LED lights.
$25 from Moma Store

USBCell Rechargeable Batteries
Each year the holiday season brings an influx of glossy new gadgets, however the energy that powers them often comes from toxic landfill-bound batteries. Keep a stack of these rechargeable USBCell batteries on hand and you'll never be without a source of clean green power. Each ingenious AA battery features a flip-cap port that can be easily plugged into your PC or Mac to recharge.
$18 from USBCell



Christmas Ornaments Made From Recycled Circuit Boards and CDs
These geek-chic holiday ornaments made from recycled e-waste are perfect for decking the halls with sustainable style. Each one is carefully cut from a reclaimed circuit board or CD, resulting in a glimmering ornament sure to delight.
$5 -$7 each from Nigel's Eco Store

Naturemill Automatic Compost Bin
From Thanksgiving all the way through New Year's Day, we know what the winter holidays are really about - cooking up staggering amounts of delectable food, sharing it with friends and loved ones, and then passing out for a post-bacchanalian nap on the couch. This year cut down on household kitchen waste by transforming leftover scraps from holiday feasts into compost with the Naturemill. This automatic compost bin takes care of all the dirty work -- simply drop in compostable matter and it will heat, aerate, and mix it with odorless natural composting cultures, yielding a load of nutrient-rich compost every two weeks.
$200 - $400 from Naturemill

How are you planning to green-up your own holiday celebration?

See more from Inhabitat:
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Top 10 Energy-Saving LED Desk Lamps
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Top 5 Green Gadgets To Save You Time & Money
5 Apps To Stop a Temper Tantrum in its Tracks

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Inhabitat is an online magazine devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and design towards a smarter and more sustainable future. Written by a young tech-savvy team designers and design journalists, Inhabitat delivers fresh content daily, showcasing emerging work from the cutting-edge of the global design community. Mike Chino is a writer, researcher, and musician based in San Francisco. He left sunny UC Santa Cruz with a B.A. in French and Modern literature and delved into publishing through a stint at ReadyMade Magazine. Inspired by the impact that forward thinking can have on the present, he has cultivated a voracious appetite for developments in sustainable architecture, design, and technology. Mike likes to bike, blog, and build things, and in his spare time he also cooks, produces music, and rocks out.