Everyone knows that Christmas is a wonderful and extravagant time of year. We are out shopping for presents, food and decorations to make our houses look festive for the whole of the Christmas period.
As we consume much more than usual, it is no surprise that Christmas is one of the most wasteful times of year and given the current environmental crisis it is even more important to celebrate without the negative impact to the earth.
Here are some not so merry statistics and also some ideas about how we help reduce waste this holiday season.
Food Waste-
At Christmas we buy around 20% more food than usual, after all it is the season for the best food, but we actually end up throwing away around 20% of this. We also spend 38% more on alcohol than any other time of the year. Around 4 million Christmas dinners will end up in the bin, joining them are 7.5 million mince pies and around 263,000 turkeys.
How can we reduce what goes to waste? Planning what food we need to buy is a simple way of spending less money and reducing what goes in the bin. I know we can be easily tempted by the chocolate yule log on the shelf at Sainsbury’s, but we need to remember we already have plenty of sweet treats at home and buying this means that the other things might go to waste. Any tinned or packaged food that hasn’t been eaten can go to foodbanks. Leftovers can be frozen so we can relive the Christmas dinner any time we want, there are many recipes that include leftovers, and unsalvageable food can also be composted.
Decorations and Gifts-
Decorating the tree each year marks the beginning of the Christmas season, especially once you find those glittery baubles we made when we were in primary school and wonder how they lasted so many years. Not many of our decorations are recyclable but they are reusable so we can reduce waste by using the same ones. If you get bored with your tree always looking the same, a good idea is to swap decorations with other people or even make your own! A great idea is biodegradable decorations like dried citrus fruits, flowers, or pinecones.
We also throw away around 239,000 miles of wrapping paper each year! A way we can help reduce this number is by buying recyclable wrapping paper instead of plastic or glittery paper. We can also make sure we use as little wrapping paper as needed to wrap all our presents.
Christmas Trees-
Many of us will have a beautifully decorated tree at home but, unfortunately after the holiday season around 6 million trees will have been thrown away. An artificial tree can last many years and by keeping them or donating them to charity shops this can reduce the numbers of trees that are discarded. Alternately, if you want a real tree they can be used as firewood or compost, and you can check if there are local drop off points for trees to be recycled.
There were too many good ideas to fit on this one blog post, so for more information about a sustainable Christmas check out these websites-