Author - Jaita Chowdhury
We are celebrating Christmas every year and do we realize that it's been bothering our Mother Earth due to the way we celebrate it?
Let's not make the Christmas burden for the environment and try to make this year the most eco-friendly Christmas!
A recent study conducted by GWP group showed that additional 30% of wastage is produced throughout the festive period.
- This amounts to three million tons each year and is made up of
- 54 million platefuls of food,
- 500 tons of Christmas lights,
- 8 million Christmas trees,
- 108 rolls of wrapping paper,
- £42 million of unwanted Christmas presents
- 100 million black bags full of packaging from toys and gifts.
This doesn’t have to be burden on the planet.
Christmas is a ‘season of giving'. Saving nature is also a way of giving. Can you agree with me on this folks?
If we make little efforts, we can reduce environmental impact of the holiday season while caring for our one and only Mother Earth.
To make Christmas 2020 a little kinder towards the environment, here are our few creative ideas. Come join us in making this year our most eco-friendly Christmas!
Rent a Christmas tree
- According to a study real Christmas trees are much more sustainable than the artificial one. Mostly artificial trees are made of PVC, which is a harm to the environment And real trees actually smells like Christmas! Isn't it?
- If you want to bring the tinge of festive in your home instead of buying the artificial tree you can rent from local nursery. Or you can rent it from sites like Love A Christmas tree, Rental Christmas tree and London Christmastree. These sites are basically deliver the Christmas tree to you and once the Christmas is over they take it back and looks after until next year. You can also rent the very same tree next year.
- If you don't want to rent then you can also buy your own Christmas tree from these sites. Try to buy local to avoid carbon footprint. But before you buy make sure it comes with Forest Stewardship of Council (FSC) certification as this will mean it has been sustainably sourced and organic too. You can also check for Soil Association approval.
Use LED lights
- Use LED lights instead of Christmas bulbs. LEDs are smaller in size and use 0.4 watts per bulb. It's usage of electricity is 100 times less than traditional bulbs. Here is a little tips turn off the lights at bed. Conserving energy benefits everyone.
- Buy the LED lights! - Star Lights ; Battery Powered Copper Wire LED String Fairy Lights
Opt for E-cards
- One of the best way to celebrate an eco-friendly Christmas is sending e-cards. As we all know the Christmas cards are sometimes decorated with glitter. The cards itself require the harvesting of trees. We can opt for home made cards. This might not look as good as the professional ones but home made cards are very sweet thing to get as a gift. It means the person has put efforts while making it for their loved ones. May be not for the kids but adults will definitely appreciate this. Check out Happy Surprise for customized Handmade gifts!
Alternative of wrapping paper
- Most of the wrapping papers are made of foil, glitter or plastics and are non recyclable. Thus making it a worst choice for the Environment.
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Try wrapping up fabric instead or you can also use recycled papers!
Think twice before you buy a gift
- To celebrated an eco-friendly Christmas unlike cards you need to buy gifts. You can make the gifts at home. Like bake a cake, make some jam, chutneys, cookies or may be knitted hats, soap.
- Avoid giving toys that promotes violence to children. Instead of that you can get educational toy games or make toys by yourself.
- Try to give battery free gifts.
- If you really want to buy gifts then try to get it from Instagram pages such as Happy Surprise which makes you customized hand-made gifts. They are very conscious about the environment. Instagram sellers are looking after the eco-friendly matter pretty well.
Sustainable decorations
I know it's pretty obvious that most of us has already bought the Christmas decorations but if not yet here are an alternative option from which you can save money and celebrate an eco-friendly Christmas too.
- Try to make DIY decorations for this Christmas. Take help of some Youtube videos or Instagram pages like Happy Surprise. There are a lot of options for how to make Christmas decorations at home, or else you can re-use the previous year's decorations.
- Go for second hand stores or may be order from online sites like Protectthe planet, Nkuku, Eco branded. These sites aren't causing any harm to the environment. If you have some berries & pine cones at home then go for it.
Avoid disposable plates or glass
I know if we use our own cutlery, plates and glasses the very next day of Christmas will be super hectic.
But if we could be a little kinder to the nature we strictly should avoid disposable plates and glasses. The least we can do.
8. Cut down the waste of food
- Not only during Christmas, we should cut back on our food waste through out the year. For that you need to pre-plan what to get and how much you need to get. Still if you end up with a lot of leftovers distribute among homeless or visit the site Love food Hate waste for recipe inspirations.
Get a reusable advent calendar
Instead of plastic calendar which need to rebuy every year invest in good quality wooden advent calendar which can be filled up with different treats each year!
With these suggestions we wish you all an eco-friendly Merry Christmas!!
Stay safe and do follow the necessity precautions.
Have any creative ideas and thoughts on how to celebrate Christmas in an Eco-friendly way? Let us know in the comments section and help others in joining the cause!
Curious where we found the above? Check below
- Yours Jaita Chowdhury
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