Green Christmas – 10 top tips

You don’t have to compromise on style or your life in order to be greener. Here are my top 10 tips to show that you can live, eat and of course decorate in ways that will be cool but not harm the environment.
If you want a green Christmas, keep in mind the three R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – and use them in that order in the preparation; before, during and after Christmas day.

Before Christmas Day

1. Buy your Christmas dinner from a farmers market - buying organic will be fresher, taste better and you’ll be buying local too, benefiting rural communities and reducing food miles. Check out www.farmersmarkets.net for your local market where you’re likely to find a selection of vegetables, fruit, meat, bread and cakes & dairy produce.
2. Christmas trees – this always creates a real debate. Is it better to go natural or artificial? Research and carbon calculations show that a natural tree is best. It bio degrades, etc vs. An artificial tree uses toxic materials and petro-chemical in its plastics, takes a lot of energy to produce, has often traveled from the far east, and it doesn’t even last forever! Not so green after all!
3. Buy gifts which give – try to buy presents that will benefit and make a difference to the lives of the receiver such as bicycles, juicers, photovoltaic (solar powered) chargers for gadgets, or even a wind up mp3-player, blankets and jumpers to encourage them to cut down on their heat use. Ecocentric has some great, green alternative and eco gift ideas to make this year a green Christmas. Many charities are now offering gift donations where you can give a goat or books for schools. Try Present Aid for more ideas.
4. Decorate your home with natural and recyclable materials –what did we do before we had plastic, tinsel and Christmas decorations?

Try using sprigs and branches with berries; such as holly, mistletoe, fir tree, and pine cones. Tie them all together and make a festive mobile, or wreath
Use old jars, wrap with coloured film and place candles inside to make lanterns
Use low energy LED fairy lights which use a fraction of the energy of standard lights.
Use vintage Christmas decorations - I buy old diamante jewellery, which sparkles beautifully, and mix it with old watch faces and even keys all odd a sense of character, nostalgia and quirkiness to our tree. Look out for bargains at markets and car boot sales.
Hand wooden letters on the tree to spell out words such as love, joy and peace.

Christmas Day
1.   Cut down on your energy use - Use candles for your Christmas meal and forget the electric light bulb for a couple of hours. This simple task will not only create a truly festive atmosphere but if carried out across the country, would dramatically cut energy usage making this year's Christmas a very green Christmas.
2.   Recycle your wrapping paper – it’s estimated that 82 sq km of wrapping paper will end up in the UK’s bins this Christmas! If there are large sheets, keep them to use again. It’s estimated that we will throw away 125,000 tonnes of plastic packaging over Christmas, so either try to buy presents without excess packaging or add it to the recycling pile.
3.   Christmas dinner scraps – if you really can’t eat any more then use your left overs creatively. Visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com for brilliant recipes and cooking tips for left overs such as turkey and ham pie. Turn your peelings & scraps into compost for a blooming marvellous garden next summer! You could reduce the size of your bin by over 20%.

After Christmas
1.   Recycle or reuse your Christmas cards – approximately 1 billion cards are sent every year – that’s 17 for every man, woman and child in the country. Use the special recycling bins at WH Smiths and Tesco stores to raise money and create new woodland areas for the Woodland Trust.
2.   Dispose of your Christmas tree properly – over 6 million were bought last year in the UK, creating a staggering 9000 tonnes of rubbish. Most DIY centres, and garden centres, have a disposal system some that will shred the tree to turn it to chippings. Or even better buy a Christmas tree with roots and plant it in your garden after the festive period.
3.   Recycle properly – It is estimated that we could use an extra 750 million bottles and 500 million drinks cans over Christmas. Make sure all your empty cans, bottles and jars find their way to your recycling bin. Start by cutting down on the amount of glass you use - buy large bottles of drink rather than lots of small ones to save on the packaging. Rinse and recycle your aluminium foil. For more information on recycling check out www.recyclenow.com

4. Unwanted Christmas presents – The charity shop website locator shows you the closest place for you to make a positive contribution of unwanted gifts. Or you could re-gift them at www.freecycle.org
5. New Years resolutions: Make yours something green that you can actually stick to, one that will make a difference to you and those around you. Try one of these:

Grow you own – try growing mushrooms, vegetables, herbs, or even a wine rack whatever your space – from windowsill to huge allotment, there is no space too small
Change your old light bulbs for green energy efficiency ones and watch your electricity bill drop. £2.2 million could be saved over the 12 days of Christmas by every household in the UK installing one energy saving bulb.
Take reusable bags shopping and refuse to take any plastic ones.
Switch off anything you are not using – stand-by actually uses a lot of power. An Energy saving monitor will tell you how much electricity you are using in real time, so switch things off around the home and watch the savings roll in!

We will create 3 million tonnes of rubbish this Christmas in Britain - the equivalent of 400,000 double-decker buses. Over half of this could be recycled. Where is it going to go otherwise? A little thought and preparation can make this year a Green Christmas