Eco-friendly Christmas: Five top tips for an eco-friendly Christmas

How can you have your greenest Christmas yet?

Lots of families across the UK are looking forward to the festive vibes.

But there's often a loads of waste at Christmas time - with gift wrap, cards, food, packaging and so much more ending up in the bin.

Could you go virtually plastic-free and make this Christmas your greenest one yet!

Here are our five top tips. Let us know YOUR tips in the comments below.

1. Wrapping paper and sticky tape

Wrap up your gifts with recyclable paper to slow down climate change!

We all know that black bin bag in the middle of the room stuffed as fat as Father Christmas' sack with ripped wrapping paper.

Instead of popping all the paper in the bin bag, get it in the recycling bin!

But check what you've got first.

It's true that most wrapping paper can actually be recycled...but only if it's not the shiny or glittery kind.

If you want to be super eco-friendly, you can use plain brown paper.

Fear not though, if you receive a shiny, glittery present, open it carefully and you can reuse the paper next year.

You could even paint the string and make it more Christmassy!

Sticky tape isn't reusable or recyclable, but a simple swap is to use string.... Bob's your reindeer, you've made a difference!

You can reuse string, and it looks pretty too!

2. Christmas crackers....

Christmas crackers are full of plastic, LITERALLY!

Christmas crackers are a really fun part of Christmas, but they are full of plastic - which usually gets thrown away.

This is really bad for the environment - so what can be done?

Paper hats, paper jokes and even the cardboard that make crackers are all recyclable - as long as they aren't shiny or glittery!

Five top tips for an eco-friendly Christmas

You can also make your own, it's super easy and you could replace the plastic toys with sweets or homemade biscuits.

You can also buy eco-friendly ones, if you're not feeling that creative.

3. Trees

That's right! Even your tree can get greener!

Can a tree even get any greener? Yes it can!

Chopping trees down and just throwing them away after Christmas isn't that great for the environment.

But you can still enjoy a 'real' Christmas tree at home and be sustainable.

You can hire a tree with its roots in a pot and have it replanted after Christmas.

Home grown Christmas trees are great for the environment!

OR

You can buy your own Christmas tree in a pot and plant it in your garden and use it year after year!

4. Christmas decorations

Edible decorations? Yes please!

Even though you can use your plastic decorations over and again, it still has an impact on the planet to make them.

Breaking away from buying plastic decorations, will help reduce the amount of plastic we produce.

So, you can make your own!

Gingerbread decorations aren't just really tasty but zero waste too - which is really good for the planet!

The best thing about homemade decorations aside from doing your bit for the planet is that no one else has the same ones!

You can also make paper chains from old magazines or newspapers, and hang them around the house or on your tree.

Or what about recycling old books into decorations, like baubles and angels?

5. Gifts...

So, we've covered the paper and the ribbon, what about what's inside it?

Wooden toys are just as nice as plastic ones and are better for the planet!

Most toys are made from plastic and the production of these things has a really big and bad impact on the planet.

But what can you gift someone instead of plastic?

There are a lot of things made from wood including toys and jewellery.

This list is about to get even tastier because and you guessed it ...you can also bake lots of Christmas treats.

Why not have a Christmas baking day?

Gifts you can eat are tasty, zero waste and really good for the planet!