Doing your bit this Christmas?

I have made sure this year to not buy Xmas cards that are embossed or contain glitter( always have disliked the stuff anyway). They say it's the only way to guarantee they don't end up in landfills.
Any other ideas anyone.....and don't say 'don't send any' either!!

 

Don't buy crackers that can't be recycled, lots of the stuff inside gets chucked away
Haven't bought cards, gifts or crackers for over 15 years, I live a sad life but 99% recycled and I only put out 1 bin bag a year and that's not even full

 

We recycle or purposely avoid buying items with excessive packaging or wrappings that can't be recycled. We have a fortnightly collection of our bin but it only gets put out every 3mths ,and even then like yours it's not full.
some brilliant ideas here..

20 Brilliant Ideas To Recycle Old Christmas Cards - Shelterness

 

I still buy or make cards with glitter, it doesn't make that much difference. They make tea bags with plastic in them and when they're soaking in a cup or tea pot the micro plastic goes into the water and then you drink it. Micro plastic is in the air from all the plastic in our houses.
Don't buy wrapping paper because we don't buy presents. In the old days they would have used brown paper.
Christmas tree is artificial, can use it every year and it will last a very long time. I recycle all that i can that can be recycled. I've got 3 compost bins that are always full from what i put in,that has made a big difference to what goes in the grey bin for land fill.

I actually up cycled a cardboard box to make another box,to put a large Christmas figurine in,hubby was very impressed.

I used to re use the plastic bags for the fruit and veg when at sainsbury's, but they stopped giving them out and replaced them with bags that can be re used. They cost 30p but they're very robust and last a long time, but still plastic.
Haven't bought crackers for a very very long time.

We have a fortnightly collection for the bins,one week the green bin for recycling and the other for the grey bin. But the green one is never full but still put it out.

 

Hmmm, well, I use waxed paper as much as possible to replace cling wrap on "take away" items for my family. Yes, it is single use but it does compost.

I refuse to stop sending Christmas cards. My list is small due to my circle of friends permanently departing at an alarming rate. And they, the cards, are 99% paper. So again, degradable.

I reuse, repurpose and recyle. But never to the point of foisting cheesy regifts on family or friends. I've found the most environmentally friendly gifts I give are cash. I put it in books that I know will be saved and cherished. For all nine grandchildren. And I am calm after because I never ask what they did with the money. Blissful ignorance...

I don't buy a real or plastic Christmas tree. I do decorate the stairs and I decorate the outside with led lights which look like the old fashioned big bulbs. I picked them up some 8 years ago in the US at a bargain price. I'm guessing people weren't ready to embrace anything but incandescent Santa stuff at the time so they were marked down to get rid of them.

I marathon bake my Christmas cookies. No heating the oven for short jaunts.

And, it's chilly out there so I naturally resist going out and driving around whenever possible

 

Oh I realise there are other things to put right as well @Logan , we try our best throughout the year too ( don't use tea bags). My thread was only really about Christmas related things.

What Can and Can’t You Recycle at Christmas? - Envirowaste

 

Mixed and varied opinions and practices relating to Christmas. Perhaps a bit strange. Christmas, basically associated with the birth of christ. Someting odd and out of place. Biblically Jesus, was the firstborne, the first creation of GOD, the grand creator. The scriptures refer to him as being GOD's Master worker. Coming down to most recent eras of human society, it is only recently Christmas has been celebrated. Check out most available encyclopedias, each will provide you with much the same answer. To associate the birth of Christ to the 25th of December is so erronious... Think back. Jesus, son of God was GOD'S first creation, he is acclaimed to be GOD's Master worker. The accepted term, Jesus Christ came about at Jesus' baptism in the Jordan river. Here a voice from heaven was heard to say. This is my son, who I have annointed.
Todays christmas celebrations are so far from the truth. Check it out. Stacks of records and evidence exist. This was a season of pagan festivities. Yule logs being burned, Ivy being bought in to adorn the homes etc. So inm all honesty the so-called christian season of christmas. BAH>

Perhaps at the end of the year a kind of family get together, yes, why not. Perhaps in a simimilar way to what many call and practice harvest thanksgiving.

 

Yes i know but had to say about the tea bags and other things so it will relate to Christmas recycling.

 

thought we had a Christmas thread going already.

 

Being Nordic and having grown up in a country where everything was recycled or repurposed makes me cringe when I'm faced with the very limited recycling capabilities of North Tyneside where I live. So I try to be very careful and do my bit, but Christmas time definitely throws some good behaviours out of the window, just because it's Christmas and you "must have" certain things.

Wrapping paper. The brown stuff looks very trendy especially adorned with red raffia string, but is so stiff it doesn't really wrap nicely. And there are so lovely styles out there that I succumb to buying beauties which will give joy for a few hours and are then scooped into the naughty bin or the slightly less guilty one, but in the end it's a lot of waste for momentarily beauty.

Christmas cards. Thankfully nowadays most are giving for charity, but obviously it doesn't lessen the waste. Why do they all come with glitter?

Presents themselves. Just how easy is it to grab a nice box of posh chocolates for the Auntie you haven't seen for a decade? In the end, it's 10 chocolates nestling in a plastic moulded tray, packed in a fancy cardboard box, usually wrapped in plastic. Then you wrap it up and adorn it with plenty of plastic ribbon, adding a tag (just to make sure that the solitary Auntie doesn't think it's for the neighbour) and send it off in the post and feel very good with yourself. That's quite a lot of material and energy gone into a gesture.

Online shopping. Thankfully Amazon is getting quite good with their packaging, which is mostly plain cardboard (which not only composts and can be recycled, but also comes in handy in various tasks in the garden), air filled plastic pouches instead of styrofoam, and as many orders packed in one box as possible. But it's a bit too easy to buy online, I have had perhaps 30 deliveries in 3 months just because I have Amazon Prime and can get the deliveries into my office mailroom. Did I really need to order that nail basecoat from Amazon, having it delivered in plenty of packaging, instead of popping into the local Boots? It cost £2, free delivery.

So what do I do?
The all important wrapping paper must be recyclable and I'm moving away from the plastic ribbon thing you curl. But I'm sticking into making beautiful presents. Stomp.

Stop buying too much. That's a tough one as it's too easy to justify buying presents "to show your affection". Good People give time instead, like taking the aforementioned Auntie for a lunch, but I need to work on that bit. At least for the younger generation a bank transfer is fine, and a text to say "Have a pint on me love" seems to be accepted very gratefully. Like CanadianLori, I don't want to know the actual usage

But yes, I need to toughen up and find better ways to get the Christmas feel of abundance without being silly with the waste and energy. Virtual gifts and hand crafted online greetings to replace mailed boxes of chocolate and cards are probably the easy first step.

But what will the chocolatiers and posties do then?

 

@redstar this thread is about how people are trying to be environmentally friendly over the festive season. Sharing such ideas with each other will certainly help benefit our planet.

I started the other thread back in August after getting a Christmas related email , it was based on how we get bombarded so early in the year with the Christmas 'hard sell' by numerous companies.
So as you can see both threads are totally unrelated.

 

@Selleri

 

We only buy for children within the family and they all get money. For the very young children this allows the parents to buy things that their children haven't already got and of equal importance ( to the parents) what suits their available toy storage space!!
Older children can select their own gift , buying something they really want or putting it towards something bigger that they are saving for.

The only adult I buy for is my 94 year old father.

Local cards are hand delivered, yes I realise that the post vans still pass me by, doing their bit in polluting the atmosphere, but I can rest easy that I am minimising the amount of my mail that they have to carry.

My cards are chosen carefully so as not to include glitter and other non recyclable embellishments.

We plan our menu and buy accordingly, yes we do have a few Christmas treats but don't go overboard. This results in no wasted food ( along with their accompanying packaging) but more importantly to us is to remember the less fortunate who find it hard to scrape together a meal for various reasons , to over indulge would
just add insult to their circumstances.

 

this year due to the planned Christmas trip, husband and I are counting that as gifts to each other. And I don't do cards, maybe 5 cards if I have to. I am all year careful with my foot print on the earth does not change around Christmas.