Have a greener Christmas

As part of our efforts to #BinBetter this year, we’re celebrating a few tinsel-tastic ways to reduce, reuse and recycle, so we can all enjoy a festively greener Christmas time.

After all, as WHAM once sang; “once binned, twice shy” – and they were almost certainly referring to putting less into landfill…

Reduce

Buy less. It sounds simple because it is - when it comes to Christmas, less really is more! Thoughtful gifting is always appreciated, and it doesn’t need to be about buying more stuff.

Here are some easy ways to reduce your consumption this Christmas: 

• buy gift vouchers for local shops, cafes and restaurants, or shows at local theatres or music venues as presents – you’ll save loads on packaging and support local businesses at the same time! 
• organise a family secret Santa to save you buying loads of presents, and make sure everyone gets one gift that they really want, rather than lots of little presents they’re, er, less sure about
• have a go at making homemade edible gifts; Christmas biscuits for example are festive, delicious, keep well and are easy enough to bake that even the least skilled bakers amongst us (ahem) would struggle to have a culinary disaster over them

Reuse

Not all that glitters needs to be new at Christmas. The more things you re-use instead of buying new, the fewer items end up as sparkly landfill in January.   

• do your elf a favour and shop second-hand for presents; charity shops and online selling platforms (like eBay, Vinted, Freegle and Facebook Marketplace) all come into their own at this time of year
• looking for a Christmas jumper, dress, or perhaps a festive bow tie (yes such things really do exist!) for Chrimbo party? Go scouting for a second-hand one! They’re often only used once or twice so you can often find them in great condition in charity shops or online
• get creative and wrap presents in some reusable wrap – this is actually a Japanese art called furoshiki! You could also use nice tea towels, napkins – or even newspaper – just make it fancy with some Christmassy ribbon!)

Recycle

One of the most wonderful times of the year it might be, but Christmas can be really rubbish for, well, rubbish. What with the extra packaging, food, and wrapping generated at this time of year, there are a few things you can do to make your recycling easier:

• food waste is like an unwelcome guest that turns up for Christmas each year – show it the door by doing a bit of meal-planning to help you buy only what you’ll use, and avoid throwing loads of unused food away. Challenge yourself to level up with your leftovers and think beyond turkey curry (Love Food Hate Waste have some great recipe ideas for leftovers) 
• make sure you put anything you really can’t use up into your food waste bin, so we are able to collect and recycle your food waste, which makes a huge difference
• up your recycling game and buy gift wrap that you can recycle (top tip - lovely as it is, glittery paper and paper made with foil doesn’t recycle.) Try some uncoated brown paper and some colourful ribbon for beautiful wrapping that won’t end up in landfill

Not sure which festive items can and can’t be recycled? Use our A-Z checker.