And A Merry Ecomas To You Too

What is everybody using as wrapping paper this year? Glossy printed paper, with bows? Metallic paper wrapped in string ribbon? All the aforementioned are attractive when wrapping up your Christmas gifts, however what about the eco option? Although collections of shiny presents attract people like magpies to pennies - at what price does this come in terms of damage to the environment? An article I came across in The Guardian questions what we can do.

Furoshiki gift wrapping may be the answer:

Several obvious benefits occur by choosing to take this route this Christmas - firstly, it saves money. This is a huge benefit with the obvious current climate, as you can reuse the material from gifts you receive. You can also recycle your old table clothes etc. by cutting them up to donate to your wrapping collection. Secondly, it entirely eliminates the paper waste that gets sent to landfill every Christmas. Win all round!

RecycleNow.com provide several tips as to making your Christmas more eco friendly. Aside from the above, they also have created a page, documenting the instructions needed to make gift bags from envelopes - something that also adds to the endless waste created at this time of year. Below is the video "how to" tutorial:

If wrapping your presents in a material alternative is not for you, and they are bigger than the envelope gift bag option, do not fear: there's always the homemade eco friendly wrapping paper option!

Furthermore, Yahoo! offer some ideas towards helping the environment and reducing your waste, including biodegradable stuffing - something that is regularly overlooked. Family gifts can be exchanged with a twist; as you can get the kids to draw their own patterns. Pathetically sentimental yes, but also quite refreshing - why do gifts have to be presented in a professional shop bought way? Homemade touches like that go down well with grandparents especially! 

At the very least - you can also use newspaper. It's waste anyway, and hey, if it's good enough for our now ex Prime Minister and family, then I guess it should be good enough for us too.

Aside from wrapping paper, there are many other aspects to Christmas. Decorations, Christmas dinner, and the gifts themselves. A novel idea I did come across was the Christmas tree made from 80,000 plastic spoons. The Telegraph shed some light on several of these topics, as well as on The National Geographic.

Lastly, I shall leave you with thinking towards the future. Tesco have provided 5 green resolutions to consider when choosing your New Years Resolution. Not only this, but there are links to the right concerning cutting your food waste levels, and 20 steps to greener living in general.

Happy Ecolidays!