By @bethancasee
Thinking of ways to make your Christmas eco-friendly can be difficult if you don’t know the right places to look.
Image courtesy of Bethan Case
You can opt for more environmentally-friendly Christmas trees, gifts and decorations to bring festive joy to this winter.
With these easy tips to reduce your consumption and help the environment, you’ll be the exploding with green this Christmas party.
1. Rent a Christmas Tree
A new trend this year and the past few years is renting a real Christmas tree from your local farm. Not only are they more sustainable than the artificial trees but you can recycle them and use the same tree for next year. All you need to do is decorate and care for the tree over the festive period and they will replant it in January.
If you do want to buy one, make sure to shop as locally as you can so you know it has been grown in an environmental standard. To dispose of it, seek out your local recycling centre for trees.
2. Reduce food waste
One way to keep green this Christmas is to buy less food- admittedly that is always hard when you have the entire family with you. However, using leftovers will be a good way to make creative meals, save money and cut down on waste. You could even donate food to a neighbour, food banks or the homeless.
Another way to be green with food this year is to buy food from small ethical businesses in your town. That way you can cut down on plastic packaging and recycle the reusable packaging.
3. Recycled wrapping paper
Things such as tape, ribbons and paper that covered with glitter cannot be recycled. Opting for brown eco-friendly paper can stop a high amount of waste. You can buy recyclable wrapping paper or use last year’s wrapping paper.
Another idea that has come to light in the past year is fabric wrapping. Using a cloth to wrap presents is a fantastic way to become more eco-friendly. You can use bright colourful or patterned cloth to reuse all over again.
4. Rechargeable batteries
You may think this isn’t eco-friendly but when using Christmas decorations that need batteries or giving gifts that will need them- this is the ideal tip.
Rechargeable batteries can be charged numerous times, making them a more sustainable replacement for normal batteries. All you need to do is buy a battery charger and you are on your way becoming greener.
5. LED Christmas lights
LED lights use up to 80% less energy. Instead of using the traditional plug-in lights, indoor LED fairy lights can be a much better alternative. With some LED fairy lights you can get up to 10 different options on how you want them to look, along with an array of different colours.
If every household in the UK switched to LED lights, £11 million and 29,000 tonnes of CO2 would be saved in just over 12 days.
6. Recycled Christmas cards
Recycled Christmas cards look just like non-recycled Christmas cards but without the glitter (unless its plant-based glitter). Some companies plant a tree every time you buy a Christmas card from them, which is a great way of saving the planet.
You could even go the extra mile and send your friends and family an e-card. Great for the environment and people don’t have to find space to put all of their cards on show if they are done online.
There are many other ways of cutting down this Christmas, but these tips are definately the best ones to make an impact this year.
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