Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat,
Please put a penny in the old man’s hat
If you have no penny, a ha’penny will do,
If you have no ha’penny then God Bless You!
It is that wonderful time of year when we catch up with loved ones, eat and drink too much and splurge on gifts. But boy does our bin (and our wallet) notice it! By making a few little changes, we can spend less, reduce our waste and lower our environmental footprint.
Food Waste
Our waste increases by 30% at Christmastime and a large percentage of this is food waste (stats show that Aussies discard over a quarter of their food over the festive period). This waste can easily be avoided:
- Eat your way through the food in your freezer in the lead up to Christmas to make room for leftovers.
- Have plenty of takeaway containers available to send your guests off with ‘doggy-bags’.
- Become inventive in the kitchen and use leftovers to make new dishes (bubble-and-squeak, quiche, frittata, stir-frys etc are fabulous for this).
Wrapping
Australians use 150,000kms of wrapping paper during Christmas (enough to circle the equator nearly four times). The majority of this paper ends up thrown away or recycled after a single use. You can avoid some of this waste by:
- Wrapping gifts in a tea-towel or cloth (you get two gifts for the price of one)
- Learn the beautiful Japanese art of Furoshiki (a zero-waste Japanese gift-wrapping technique)
- Use your kid’s paintings and drawings to make a special personalized gift wrap
Gifts
Australians are spending around $11 billion a year on Christmas gifts with estimates that 20 million of these end up unwanted. Give a gift with a difference by:
- Gifting experiences rather than things
- Give home made gifts such as body scrubs, cakes, jams, chutneys, cookies etc
- Make your gift truly ‘eco’ by buying second-hand items.