Top tips for a green Christmas

There’s snow time like the present to be thinking about how to reduce household waste over this year’s festive period. 

Shropshire Council, together with its waste contractor Veolia Environmental Services, has provided some top tips to help residents save money and have an eco-friendly Christmas and New Year. 

Reduce

• This year email your Christmas greetings to your friends and family. You can often send e-cards for free on the Internet, so saving money on postage and packaging.
• When buying drinks look for the larger containers instead of lots of small ones to reduce excess waste.
• Choose a potted Christmas tree that will live for years, then each year you can bring it inside to decorate for the festive season.
• Plan your meals and portion sizes in advance and try asking your guests to RSVP.  You may find that you can buy less food than you thought – saving money too! Visit www.lovefoodhate.com for a handy portion calculator for Christmas meals and parties.
• When buying presents and food, visit your local producers which will help you reduce your carbon footprint.
• Buy rechargeable batteries for children’s toys rather than disposable batteries.
• When filling the bin remember to squash everything down to make more room for the extra waste.
• When shopping for Christmas treats, keep an eye on packaging.  Try and buy food with as little packaging as possible – choose loose fruit and vegetables instead of pre-packed goods.

Re-use 

• Serve drinks to your friends and family in washable reusable drinks glasses instead of disposable cups.
• Before recycling your old Christmas cards, re-use the front image and turn it in to a gift tag for next year’s presents.
• Compost your tree at home and make compost to reuse in your garden to feed your plants and flowers.
• Keep leftovers fresh by storing them carefully, and keep an eye out for recipes designed to re-use them.  Check out www.lovefoodhatewaste.com for more ideas.
• Chocolate tins are great to be used as storage as a biscuit tin, or for storing DIY essentials.
• If the wrapping paper from your present is still in good condition re-use it to wrap the gifts you give.
• If you have a clearout in the New Year take your unwanted gifts to your local charity shop.
• Help next year’s plants grow by making use of this year’s tired vegetation.  Adding spent bedding plants to your compost mix will help to capture all the nutrients and will give your new plants a great start when you wake the garden back up in the spring.
• If you have unwanted furniture or electrical items, why not donate them to your local furniture scheme. 

Recycle

• Make sure you recycle all your paper, cans, glass bottles and jars, and plastic bottles using your kerbside collection service.
• Remember you can recycle clean tin foil, biscuit tins, aerosols and aluminium packaging along with your cans.
• Take your Tetra Pak-type drink cartons to one of the five recycling centres.
• Take your real Christmas tree for recycling at your local recycling centre.  Small trees can be cut up and recycled through the garden waste collection service.
• Buy recycled wrapping paper and Christmas cards.
• A home compost heap or bin can recycle fruit and vegetable peelings, tea bags, egg shells and more.  See www.recyclenow.com/compost for help and support.
• Cards without foil, plastic and glitter decorations can be recycled from home with your paper collection.
• For any unwanted Christmas jumpers look for your local textile bank to recycle the material.       

Councillor Mike Owen, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member with responsibility for waste and recycling, said:

“We hope that these helpful tips will give you lots of ideas on how you can reduce, re-use and recycle as much as possible over Christmas.”