Eco-Friendly Festivities: Top Tips for an Environmentally Conscious Christmas
Environmentalists argue that the holiday period is the world’s greatest annual environmental disaster. Here are some top tips to ensure that your Christmas is environmentally conscious.
2 minute read
Christmas is a magical time of year. Seeing your family, giving and receiving lots of presents, eating too much food and drinking too much brandy! It is a time for spending quality time with your loved ones and showing them how much you appreciate them.
However, as delightful as Christmas is, environmentalists argue that the holiday is the world’s greatest annual environmental disaster.
The food waste alone in the UK goes up by 30% at Christmas time compared to the waste created during the rest of the year. Approximately 270,000 tons of food is wasted during the festive period every year in the UK.
Christmas trees are another major cause of environmental damage and pollution during the holiday period. When real Christmas trees are disposed of incorrectly, they produce the greenhouse gas, methane, when they are in landfill. Methane is incredibly harmful to the environment and contributes towards global warming and climate change. Artificial Christmas trees are better overall, as they last longer and can be reused. However, when they are disposed of, they do not decompose, and the Carbon Trust estimates that a two-metre tree has a carbon footprint of more than double that of a real tree that ends up in landfill.
Thankfully, there are some vital changes that you can make this year to your Christmas festivities to really make a difference to the environment and minimise your personal impact. Here are some top tips to ensure that your Christmas is environmentally conscious.
Wrapping Paper and Christmas Cards
Try to reuse or recycle gift wrapping paper where possible and try to avoid buying metallic wrapping paper. This is because this type of paper does not biodegrade and cannot be recycled in the same way. You can also buy Christmas cards that are made from 100% recycled paper and biodegradable ones that will not harm the environment. Alternatively, you could even send an electronic card/e-card to your loved ones that they can keep forever and will not add to your carbon footprint!
Buy ‘Green’ Gifts
Aim to purchase gifts for your loved ones made from recycled materials where possible. Also, choose locally made and sourced products where you can, as they will not need to be transported across the world and add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Homemade and handmade gifts are also great ideas because they are extremely sentimental items and mean the most when you give them to your loved ones. For example, if you know how to knit or crochet, these hobbies are particularly useful and are perfect for gift-giving in the Christmas season!
Purchase a Reusable Advent Calendar
Many advent calendars are bad for the environment because they use plastic, which often cannot be recycled. These add to the three million tonnes of extra plastic waste created every year during the Christmas period. If you buy an advent calendar made of fabric that can be hung up on a wall, you can fill these with whatever goodies and sweet treats you want, whilst helping the environment at the same time!
Plan a Zero-Waste Christmas Dinner
This might involve simplifying your menu slightly, but you will feel far better knowing that you did not contribute to the huge amount of food wasted each year at Christmas. One idea to help reduce waste is cooking a turkey crown rather than a whole turkey. This will give you far less turkey leftover, as well as saving you both cooking and preparation time! Even if you do end up with leftovers, you can also plan meals ahead of the festive period that you can cook to make using up your leftovers easy.
