Don’t be disposable
Every Christmas the UK uses an extra 750 million bottles and 500 million drinks cans, all of which could be recycled. Hire glasses and crockery from local wine merchants and supermarkets or even better, borrow from friends and neighbours. Majestic Wine is offering a free glass loan service when you place an order and put down a fully-refundable deposit.
Foil the waste
Every Christmas, 4,200 tonnes of aluminium foil (from covering 10 million turkeys) are thrown away in the UK. Foil is designed for multiple uses, so why not wash and dry it and use again? If not, make sure you add it to your recycling, as foil takes much less energy to recycle than manufacture. Alternatively, you can buy this
100% recycled foil, £2.95 from the Natural Collection, which requires only 5 per cent of the energy needed to make regular supermarket-sold foil.
Don’t dump your tree
We buy over six million Christmas trees every year, of which under two million are recycled. Try a UK-grown real tree with roots that can be planted in your garden or kept in a pot. Or buy an artificial tree (with as little plastic as possible) such as the laser-cut Africa tree (£34.95) from Designmyworld.net, and use it from year-to-year to reduce waste. If you need to get rid of a tree, check whether your local council will recycle it. Many grind the trees into wood chips and use them to mulch gardens or parks instead of dumping in landfill.
Get low level lighting
A normal string of Christmas tree lights used 10 hours a day for 12 days generates enough carbon dioxide to fill 12 party balloons. You might not want to cover your roof with flashing reindeer, but if you crave some festive lighting, look for products that use LEDs instead of traditional bulbs. They last 10 times longer, produce virtually no heat and dramatically reduce power consumption. Quick switch, great result. Try these LED Star Lights, £40 from John Lewis.
Wrap up your rubbish
It is estimated that as much as 83 square km of wrapping paper will end up in UK rubbish bins over Christmas, using the equivalent of approximately 50,000 trees. That’s enough to cover an area larger than Guernsey. Save paper to reuse where you can and choose non-metallic wrapping paper.Then remove tape, ribbons and string before recycling. We love the Natural Collection’s turquoise gift bags (£4.75 for a set of two), made in India from recycled paper. No need for tearing so they can be given away again. And no one need ever know...
