Taking a stance for an environmentally-friendly Christmas festive helps create a proactive celebration prep with friends and family. Celebrating Christmas in an ethical and eco-friendly manner brings out creativity, patience and togetherness as you work to create sustainable decorations that are plastic-free, zero-waste and aptly made. Here are some festive ideas to get you started with your eco-friendly deco for the coming Christmas holiday season.
Reusable wood as Christmas ornaments
Utilise waste wood to create wonderful eco-friendly decorations with your personal touch of creative texts that can be hung on walls, ceilings or even on your Christmas tree.
DO YOU KNOW? As of 2021, the globe generates more than 2.01 billion tons of municipal solid waste each year and as a minimum 33 percent of that waste is not handled in an ecologically safe method.
Supply for what’s required
We tend to go into excess when it comes to buying Christmas food, which only produces many leftovers or wasted foods. But for this eco-friendly Christmas, be mindful of the amount of food you buy or cook for your Christmas table. Supplying food in the right amount will minimise the waste quantity.
DO YOU KNOW? 230,000 tonnes of food waste are created during the Christmas season.About 1/3 of the food produced globally for human consumption each year is wasted, which is roughly 1.3 billion tons and if the lost or wasted food presently across the world could be saved, it would be enough to feed approximately 870 million people.
Use recycled paper for gift wrappings
Wrap your Christmas gifts with environment-friendly materials such as natural kraft papers that are not only 100 percent eco-friendly (recyclable and compostable) but also much stronger than normal paper. This method will help reduce paper consumption, which can eventually preserve even one tree.
DO YOU KNOW? An estimated 125,000 tonnes of plastic packaging are produced during the Christmas season. While usually, packaging takes up approximately 65 percent of domestic trash and paper accounts for about 26 about of landfill waste and 33 percent of community waste.
Personalised Christmas tree items
Instead of buying new metallic bauble and other plastic ornaments to hang on your Christmas tree try something new to personalise your tree. One way of doing this is by setting up images of happy moments in life or even photos of your friends, family and loved ones.
DO YOU KNOW? Almost all Christmas tree baubles cannot be recycled.
Waste paper decorations
Make the best of your waste paper, especially wrapping paper waste this Christmas season and create exciting paper decorations to lighten up your home or workplace.
DO YOU KNOW? The amount of discarded wrapping paper during the Christmas season would cover 384,400 km or 238,855 miles if they were laid. Moreover, if one tonne of paper is recycled, it would save about 1400 litres of oil, 26,500 litres of water and 17 trees.
Sustainable Christmas gifting
Look for ways to promote solid waste management this festive season by gifting others durable and reusable items. It’s about time we stop piling the landfills with fads from the shopping centres and endeavour to reduce waste. Consider presenting homemade gifts such as baked goodies, jams or plants; even ones that don’t produce waste such as tickets for a movie, concert, dinner or game. Other products that get used up such as soaps, plant seeds and homemade candles would be great gifts for an eco-friendly Christmas celebration.
DO YOU KNOW? It is estimated that Christmas gifts worth £42 million worth are discarded and directed to landfill.
Smaller and natural Christmas trees
For an eco-friendly Christmas display a natural but small Christmas tree. Choosing a real tree over an artificial one is environment-friendly and having it small in size will help reduce the harm caused by deforestation.
DO YOU KNOW? Almost six million Christmas trees are discarded every year, while nearly seven million Christmas trees are annually sent to landfills, creating approximately 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas.