‘Tis The Season To Be Green The holidays are upon us. With an abundance of ever-glowing light strings, discarded gift wrap and tinseled trees decking the halls, environmental concerns seem to fly (a.k.a. Dancer, Prancer etc.) out the window. You can still share in the sparkle of the season, however, and keep your workplace (and even your home) environmentally friendly. Here are a few tips to get you started. As pretty as they are, holiday lights shouldn’t be illuminated 24/7. The same applies to any lights or electronic equipment you utilize. Flip the switch when not in use! If you’re using a live (well, formerly live) tree in your decorating scheme control the urge to toss on a few strands of synthetic tinsel. Nothing about those clingy slivers of silver is biodegradable. Use them on your tree and the tree is no longer fully biodegradable either. When you journey out the chop down the perfect conifer bring a shovel instead of a saw. A potted pine will make an excellent Christmas decoration and a great addition to the exterior of your business when the holidays are over. When giving your employees holiday gifts this season, get creative while “keeping them under wraps”. Gift bags can be recycled whereas wrapping paper cannot. Craft, paper and party-supply stores offer inexpensive, decorated cardboard boxes and tins that are also a more environmentally-friendly alternative to paper and ribbons. Weeds Take A “Beeting” Nobody likes weeds. Except, perhaps, Weed Man (http://www.weed-man.com/) for it can be said that this perennial lawn annoyance is what keeps Weed Man in business. As most lawn owners know, however, not all weed killers are created equal and when it comes to covering the grass with pesticides a growing number of people would rather ditch the chemicals and suffer the weeds. Toronto-based Weed Man wants those anti-chemical consumers to breathe a little easier. For the past decade the company has offered a line of organic pesticides called Nature’s Touch. Depending on the lawn owner’s geographical region, he or she has the option of using Nature’s Touch Premium Dry Fertilizer (an exclusive blend of organic matter) or Nature’s Touch Premium Liquid Fertilizer, a product composed of food-grade materials including molasses and sugar-beet extract. While the weed killing results of the Nature’s Touch products are not guaranteed by Weed Man franchisees (Weed Man does guarantee weeds will disappear with the use of its traditional fertilizers), they do act as a season-long soil fertilizer and will improve lawn health and discourage weed encroachment. And, since you can’t rush Mother Nature, the Nature’s Touch healthy lawn develops more slowly than one treated with Weed Man’s more traditional fertilizers. Organic weed killers are also more expensive than more traditional methods and therefore Weed Man is researching options to help reduce these costs. Weed Man does provide solutions for people who are torn between destroying weeds and protecting the environment. All registered Weed Man products are biodegradable and approved of by Agriculture Canada. Most of Weed Man’s customers opt for simple fertilizer treatments which are natural but, because of a modification process necessary to make them applicable on a lawn, not organic. Weed Man, a franchise division of Toronto’s Turf Holdings, Inc., has recently expanded its American presence. In addition to the company’s vast Canadian franchise network, Turf Holding operates 72 franchises and 13 sub-franchises in the U.S. Weed Man franchisees attend an intensive 12 day training course that covers everything from the business side of the house (including marketing and sales) to the weed side of the lawn (namely weed, moss and pest control, fertilizer applications, aeration, liming, seeding and turf technology).