FREE PRESS COLUMN: 10 ways to be more Eco-friendly this Christmas

Here are my top ten easy ways to green up your Yule:

1. If you have an artificial tree, keep it for as long as you can. If you’re a real tree family, make sure it’s a forestry commission approved tree or one in a pot you can re-use every year.

2. No foil or plastic on wrapping paper, crackers, and cards. Maybe use old scarves to wrap gifts in. Use as little sticky tape as possible or use paper tape and avoid glitter, glitter is ready-made microplastic!

3. Cook from scratch. Freeze in advance to reduce work on the big day but making your own cuts down on packaging. Google Marry Berry on this one. Think about your left-over recipes in advance to avoid boxing day shop runs.

4. Read the recycling rules again. Prepare your recycling plan to avoid losing small presents and causing a bad batch in the recycling process. Keep useful bits of wrapping paper for next year.

5. Put a timer on your lights to save energy and think about how many you actually need.

6. Make a list for every one you buy a gift for and set a budget before you start. Everything you buy goes on the list. Add up the total spend as you go along.

7. Buy second-hand, buy local, buy ethical, buy sustainable as much as possible and try to buy something that will get used. Gift sets of toiletries and weird booze end up on tombola stalls. Second-hand board games are a great buy for the whole family.

8. The kids are off school so give them something to do. There are “green” cracker kits they can make, place cards they can make and simple biscuit recipes can cut down on your packaging too.

9. Roses or Quality Street? Quality street, except the toffee penny, have 100% recyclable/biodegradable packaging. Buy the tin instead of the plastic tub for years of useful storage

use.

10. Panto. Tickets as gifts for that quiet time after Christmas, before they go back to school are a great idea.