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Tell Whirli your tips for little ways you can make Christmas more eco-friendly: £200 voucher prize
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We made small changed last year such as buying eco friendly wrapping paper, as most wrapping paper isn't recyclable sadly. We've then upgraded the wrapping paper with friendly alternatives such as dried orange slices and pine cones which look so beautiful and can actually be used the year after as tree decorations.
For our friends and family we've been a lot more forthcoming in asking what they actually need and want rather than surprises which is actually not what they want a lot of the time! We've also they sourced these things from more renewable sources such as refurbished and second hand.
For our own daughter we have spent more and bough solid (usually wooden) quality items which can hopefully be past down to our next child or family and friends and reused rather than friable plastics. We've also asked for experiences that we would like to avoid the plastic presents and got hand me down toys which have still got lots of life in them. Then when our baby grows out of they we will pass them on again to get maximum use.
We bought quality Christmas decorations last year which we're reusing this year and will for many more. We've also invested in biodegradable Christmas cards, next year we hope to ger Christmas cards which are plantable and have seeds mixed in.
We've also bought a reusable advert calendar that we can recycle every year, which will actually grow with our baby for a lifetime! We've also got a smart meter than we watch like a hawk and have made lots of little changes such as only boiling as much water as you need to reduce our energy consumption!
We have already placed our order for our Christmas food from a local farm shop. That way travel has been reduced and we also know it's of a good quality. With it being a bit more expensive we're also more conscious of how much we buy, minimising waste! However as waste is inevitable we plan to eat out of the freezer for the coming months to ensure there is lots of room for leftovers!
We buy useful gifts for each other that we really need or will benefit the environment like bird or hedgehog boxes and bird feeders.
We use recyclable plain paper and reusable ribbon to wrap and stamp it to decorate. We cut up old Christmas cards for gift tags as needed and reuse giftwrap we've previously received.
Our diet is plant based and this year we are hosting on Christmas day, so we are in the dilemma of whether to subject our meat-eating guests to full on vegan or just a little meat, fish and dairy. Either way it will hopefully produce less CO² than a traditional Christmas dinner.
We buy a pot grown tree and then guerrilla plant it in the woods, though we now have a garden, so we'll plant there.
We add one decoration to the tree ornaments each year. Last year I made it out clay. We're now conscious of avoiding plastic and glitter when choosing, but our previous unethical decs go up with them all the same so they don't hit landfill.
It reduces the energy needed from a traditional oven and we just use it to crisp the turkey for about 30 mins, reducing the carbon footprint
Also considering buying second hand fabrics to wrap presents in that we can keep and use every year.