Firstly, get innovative and imaginative with your gifts. All too often, we buy gifts that remain unused and sometimes even unopened - getting thrown away - especially if we are panic buying and we are unsure of what to get people. This isn't very sustainable as many of these gifts can harm our earth with high amounts of plastic packaging. Maybe try mixing it up this year - instead of panic buying and purchasing costly or harmful gifts - try another approach. Homemade gifts can show that you have spent time and effort in creating something you think they’ll love. A great homemade gift is food, especially sweet treats! Cookies and Christmas? The perfect combo. Support small independent businesses, to boost a sustainable local economy and you’ll be sure to seek out special finds that your recipient doesn’t already have!
Secondly, Instead of purchasing new items, try to upcycle items you already have. Upcycling is a very important part of eco-friendly living as it keeps waste out of landfills. It can also be very cost effective, which is very handy around Christmas time when everyone is a bit strapped for cash. It could be an item of clothing, furniture, decoration, anything can be upcycled! Additionally, it will mean more that you took the time to create instead of buy. Great examples of easy upcycling include making candles from leftover crayons. You can even use old teacups/mugs to hold your candles in!
Thirdly, get rid of those wasteful crackers. One of the biggest contributors to waste over the Christmas period is actually the much-loved Christmas cracker, as most of them can’t be recycled and the plastic toys are usually tossed in the bin before the meal is even over. Instead of buying your usual Christmas crackers that only provide a few seconds of joy at the dinner table, but years of grief for our planet, opt for recyclable or even reusable crackers which are equally as inexpensive.
Rethink your wrapping! Every household in the UK will use an average of 4 wrapping paper rolls each year at Christmas, which totals a whopping 227,000 miles of wrapping paper. The majority of this won’t be recycled. So why not change it up this year and use newspaper. You can jazz the newspaper up by using ribbon, which you can use again. The newspaper can easily be recycled. Not only is it kinder to the environment, but it will save you money too!
And lastly, make sure you shop sustainably. Many major companies don’t care about how they may be affecting the planet. This Christmas, help out independent, sustainable brands, who make it their mission to help the planet. The likelihood with sustainable brands is that they are much smaller scale, so shopping with them would help them become better known and improve their business.
Our planet is for life, not just for Christmas. Make it your mission to help the planet this Christmas. Whether that’s through DIY-ing your gifts or changing up your wrapping paper, we can all make small changes that will give the planet the best gift. A sustainable Christmas.
By Annabel Haggar
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