Christmas is traditionally a time packed with gift giving, festivities. If we’re going to be completely honest with ourselves, a lot of waste too! If you care about the environment, you don’t have to forgo this wonderful holiday to make a difference. Just think a bit more carefully this year before you go out buying festive gifts willy-nilly from every Christmas market you visit this year!
Here are 6 simple tips you can use to transform your Christmas into an eco-friendlier one.
Choose The Best Christmas Tree
There’s no need to cut a tree down and bring it into your home to have the perfect holiday. Many Christmas tree farms are now offering tree rentals. Where an appropriately sized potted tree is brought into the home for the holiday.
Tree rentals are beneficial to everyone. The tree farm can rent out a tree several times before it is too big. The tree benefits because it survives. The environment benefits because once the tree is too big to be rented out, it can be planted.
If you can’t find a tree rental in your area, look for the most sustainable option. Some Christmas tree sellers only sell trees that were cut from underneath power lines and had to come down anyway. Or they use more sustainable methods of farming.
If you harvest your own Christmas tree, you can also choose to plant a tree at the same time. Putting back a bit of what you took. Here are some tips on how to care for your real Christmas tree to help it last longer.
Gift Thoughtfully
Many people feel pressured to have a ‘big’ Christmas filled with presents for friends and family. While unwrapping dozens of presents certainly does trigger warm memories for some, many of those presents are never played with or they get forgotten about as soon as as they’re opened.
The best gifts are the ones that truly speak to the person who is receiving it. Rather than get your mother-in-law that fuschia lotion set featured at the grocery store. Take a few moments to look for something that won’t end up being thrown out.
If you’re gifting to a person who prefers to keep things minimalist, donating to a charity in their name can be more impactful than a physical gift. Don’t just give a gift for the sake of giving a gift. This is wasteful in so many ways. Let alone so bad for the environment!
Check Out The Companies Ethics
When looking for a gift to give, especially if you’re looking to buy something new, look for brands who have the health of the planet at its heart. One great company i came across recently was Cycle Of Good. Instead of manufacturing new materials, they use what’s already available to create beautiful new items. For example, they collect waste inner tubes from bicycles, and other materials saved from landfill. These items are then shipped to Malawi where craftspeople turn them into things such as – wash bags, shoulder bags, rucksacks, coin purses, belts and even face masks.
The wash bag below is made from recycled inner tubes from bicycles and the shoulder bag is made from an old coffee sack. I love that these items have a story behind them, and not just something mass produced in a factory.
On top of their great work recycling old products in to new ones, they’re also helping to end poverty in one of the poorest communities in the world. They currently employ 33 Malawian tailors full time, with ambitions to grow this to a team of over 100 people. So, if you’re looking for a great company to buy your gifts from this year, whilst also doing something good for the planet, take a look at their great products.
Use Sustainable Wrap
If you’ve ever found yourself with trash bags stuffed with wrapping paper, bows and boxes after a holiday celebration, chances are this is one part of holiday waste you are well aware of. Fortunately, this one is also an easy fix.
One simple swap is to give your gift in a reusable tote bag. With bag bans popping up all over the world, a reusable tote is a useful gift all on its own. If the person who was given it doesn’t want to use it, chances are they’ll use it as a gift bag for someone else, until it finds a person who does.
You can also get creative and find your wrap at your local secondhand shop, giving old maps and other paper products that no longer have value a second lease on life. If you’re looking for more sustainable Christmas gift wrapping ideas, checkout this article.
Switch To LED Outdoor Christmas Lights
Outdoor Christmas Lights are beautiful but can also eat up a lot of energy. A simple change you can do to make a big difference is to switch from incandescent lights to LED. LED lights are much more sustainable and energy efficient and last longer. That means not only will you save on your power bill, but you’ll also save the environment.
If you already use LED lights, keep spare bulbs on hand and take the time to repair them. Many outdoor Christmas lights are thrown out unnecessarily because a single bulb is out on the strand. By keeping what you have and taking the time to repair the lights as bulbs burn out, you can save a lot of material from being wasted.
Have A Food Waste Plan
From farm to table, 40% of food goes to waste on any given day. Much of this is invisible to us, happening at the farm and grocery store long before you’ve had a chance to take it home. During Christmas however, the gathering of family and friends can often result in an overabundance of food.
One of the greenest things you can do for your holiday plans is to have a food waste plan. Ask your friends and family if they will want leftovers, and if so to bring a box with them to put it in.
Any scraps that don’t get used up should be composted. Composting helps turn those veggie scraps into a useful product, but more importantly ensures that they don’t release greenhouse gases into the environment. In the anaerobic conditions created by landfills, our food waste can end up producing methane.
If we were to avoid wasting food on a global scale, it would lower our total greenhouse gas emissions by 6-8%.
Christmas should be a time of joy. By choosing the most sustainable way to celebrate, we can make a truly wonderful difference for the planet.
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