Of all our Christmas choices, gift giving has the potential to be the least eco-friendly. Last year Australians spent $1 billion on unwanted Christmas gifts, and over 50% of people receive Christmas presents they didn’t use. We completely waste about 4,000 tonnes of wrapping paper each year – the equivalent of 25,000 trees.
We can all reduce our carbon footprint this festive season by sourcing food and drinks locally, being more festively electronic, reusing wrapping paper for gifts, minimising food waste (and waistline) by not over catering or over filling plates.
Here are some great Christmas eco-gift ideas:
Give an e-card. Do you need to send a card to everyone you know? Send e-cards, text messages, or visit friends and business colleagues at Christmas.
Keep it Aussie. Instead of buying a plastic tree, full of toxins, use a potted Australian native that can be planted in the garden after Christmas. Wollemi Pines look great and can be kept in a pot for years.
Tease ‘em with a tea towel. Instead of Christmas paper, wrap gifts in fabric that can be re-used, such as a scarf, sarong, cloth bags, tablecloths or a nice hankie. If you must paper, go for recycled paper, or use old calendar pages, magazines or the comic sections from newspapers.
Make it a memory. Rather than buying more “stuff”, consider giving an experience – cinema or concert tickets, a voucher for a massage. That’s the spot.
Show your compassion. How many goats did you give last year? How about a piglet in Cambodia? TEAR Australia (www.usefulgifts.org) has created “Arguably the World’s Most Useful Gift Catalogue” to help those in poverty in the developing world: $5 will buy school supplies for a child in Ethiopia; $50 will buy a goat for a family in Bangladesh.
Light up their life… with LED fairy lights. These use even less energy than conventional ones. Remember to turn off. Switching off an unnecessary light for just one night saves enough energy to run a stereo for 24 hours. Let’s party in the dark!
There is such a thing as a free lunch, and you’re cooking. Buy fresh, in-season local foods that haven’t been trucked across the country – creating greenhouse emissions – or kept in cold storage for months. You can throw in a good food story to nourish the soul. For lunch, a barbecue is a better choice than a roast which keeps the oven burning for half the day. Cool!
Future food. How about giving gifts that help someone else live sustainably - such as seeds or seedlings, and organic fertiliser for a veggie patch. Yum.
A little ray of sunshine. Did you know there are solar mobile phone chargers and solar battery chargers. Batteries contain toxic chemicals, don’t biodegrade and are difficult to recycle. Use rechargeable ones or choose a gift that doesn’t need them.
Give ‘em a buzz with an energy efficient thing. When buying appliances this Christmas, check for the Energy Rating, the more stars the more money you will save in the long run and help to reduce emissions. Go to www.energyrating.gov.au before you choose. You’ll find tools to compare makes & models including their energy, water and gas usage and cost per annum. Good friend!
Give them nothing. Nothing? Hang on there it is! …Surprise!! To save wasteful paper, hide the presents in the office, house and garden and organise a treasure hunt. You can do away with wrapping altogether. Combine this activity with the office party dinner and create some great Christmas memories.
Give it back… stacks and stacks of other people’s Christmas cards. Each year, until the end of January you can pick up a reply-paid envelope from Australia Post stores and post your cards to Planet Ark for free. The Planet Ark 4 Cards campaign, now in its 15th year, has recycled more than 550 million cards, saving more than 100,000 trees. http://festiverecycling.planetark.org
Green directory of eco-friendly Australian businesses. This green directory is providing you all details about environmental companies around Australia. Find the green business around your place.
Dreaming of a Green Christmas
Of all our Christmas choices, gift giving has the potential to be the least eco-friendly. Last year Australians spent $1 billion on unwanted Christmas gifts, and over 50% of people receive Christmas presents they didn’t use. We completely waste about 4,000 tonnes of wrapping paper each year – the equivalent of 25,000 trees.
