How to make your Christmas just that little bit greener…

Much of my time as the company’s environmental advisor is spent researching and implementing new ideas for the company to lessen the impact we have on our environment. It’s progress, not perfection, but every new, more environmentally friendly thing we do helps to make a difference.

This Christmas for example, I have worked closely with our design team to ensure that our beautiful and award winning Christmas boxes are not only totally fabulous and a delight to open, but are also a little kinder to our world. We made the boxes slightly smaller, so that less packaging is needed inside to protect the products, plus they’re made completely from environmentally friendly 100% recycled board and the Sea Holly design is printed on to paper from a sustainable, FSC accredited source and has a biodegradable matt laminate finish.

I’ve also shared some tips on how you can reuse or recycle any of our Christmas packaging on our website (UK, US, Ireland).

Whilst Christmas is a time when we traditionally consume more than at any other time of year, celebrating doesn’t have to mean we should forget about the extra waste we generate. There are some positive actions we can all take to make the season that little bit greener without getting in the way of the Christmas spirit:

Before Christmas…

Christmas cards
Up to 1 billion Christmas cards could end up in bins across the UK this Christmas (estimate from www.wasteonline.org.uk).

What can we do?
Why not email your Christmas wishes to some of your friends and family? Cancer Research UK have a great festive selection of e-cards and you can donate the money that you would have spent on cards to a good cause! (www.sendandgive.org)

Christmas wrapping paper
Over Christmas, enough wrapping paper will be used to cover an area larger than Guernsey (estimate from www.wasteonline.org.uk). However, wrapping presents is part of the festive ritual and admittedly, it wouldn't be as much fun if you could see what you'd got as soon as you looked under the tree.

What can we do?
Why not use more gift bags and boxes, they look fantastic and can easily be reused. 100% recycled Christmas paper is a great idea too (www.guardianecostore.co.uk). Finally, try to reuse or recycle the Christmas paper you receive this year. To find out how visit: www.recyclenow.com

After Christmas…

Christmas cards
In the 12 years that the Woodland recycling scheme has been running, 600 million cards have been recycled. This has enabled the Woodland Trust to plant 141,000 trees, save 12,000 tonnes of paper from landfill and stop 16,000 tonnes of CO2 from going into the atmosphere – the equivalent to taking more than 5,000 cars off the road for a year. So it a really worthwhile thing to do!

What can we do?
Try to recycle all your cards. A great idea is to use some of your favourite cards to create unique gift tags for next year. You can also take your cards to one of the Woodland Trust collection sites, who will recycle the cards to help raise money to plant new trees (www.woodland-trust.org.uk/cards).

Wasted food
Did you know? Almost a third of food bought at Christmas is wasted by the average family (Friends of the Earth – www.foe.co.uk).

What can we do?
Think carefully this Christmas about what food you will need over the festive season. Why not take a list with you when you go shopping? You are less likely to be tempted to add things you don’t really need into your basket. (This saves money too!)

I’d also recommend popping a Compost Crock onto your Christmas list. These decorative ceramic crocks are the smart new way to collect kitchen scraps for the compost heap and are custom-made for kitchen waste destined for your compost bin (we use them here in our office kitchen!) Find out more from www.naturalcollection.com. If you would like further information on composting visit www.recyclenow.com.

I hope you find these tips useful. If you have any other ideas for making Christmas a little bit ‘greener’, why not share them on this blog – I’m always looking for new ideas.

Comments

[Beverley]

Hi

I really appreciate the Green Policies of Naturally Active as much as I appreciate the quality of the products available to me in the skin care range.

We follow composting and re-use packaging as much as possible. One thing I had read this post for was to see about the little white 'polystyrene' type things around the products to protect are these suitable for recycling in the garden compost?

I know some are made of suitable recycling material but I am not too sure about these. I know my father re-uses them for posting things but he is keen to know if he can compost the extra we have especially now with Christmas order boxes ;) Thank you if this can be addressed for us.

[Toni]

Great blog Geoff!

[Alicia]

Great to know how green Liz Earle is. I have noticed you have stopped putting celotape on your tissue paper which is wonderful as we can now reuse it.
Would it be possible to use less celotape on our delivery boxes,I know we want our parcels to be safe but it takes ages to get it off to put in the recycling bin and you would save on tape..Just a thought.Keep up the good work.

[Geoff]

Thanks for your post Alicia, glad to know you have noticed all the little changes we have made to improve things environmentally.
To ensure our parcels are delivered safely to you, unfortunately we have to use the amount of tape that we do. However we know this isn’t ideal, so are currently exploring the possibility of using biodegradable packing tapes which could be composted, or paper tape, which would mean the whole box could be recycled without removing it first. If, after extensive testing, we are happy with the performance of either of these ‘greener’ alternatives we will look to adopt them in the future, so I’ll keep you posted….

Thank you again,
Geoff

[Geoff]

Thanks for your question Beverly:

We use biodegradable and compostable packing chips for all the packages you receive from us. They are made from vegetable starch blown with steam and are 100% biodegradable, and better still – are perfect for the compost heap as they break down really quickly. If you ever have any doubts about the biodegradability of packing chips pop one in a glass of water – if it dissolves you can compost it!
If you haven’t already - have a look at the ‘reduce, reuse recycle’ page on our website.

[Olivia]

Love this Blog Geoff. Very informative.
I have been looking at ways to reduce waste over christmas, so this has been really helpful. I have bought some fantastic wrapping paper from ecotopia.co.uk which is recycled and made with vegetable inks -so compostable, and comes in compostable packaging. I know of a company that uses scented popcorn in their packaging, if scented with essential oils this would be compostable too, is this something Liz Earle would consider? Thanks again, Merry Christmas.
Liv

[Geoff]

Thank you for your reply Liv-
Really interested in your info on the compostable wrapping paper-
It isn’t normally recommended that you compost coloured paper because of the ink (unless it says it’s printed with vegetable based inks you can’t always be sure that you aren’t adding all sorts of petrochemical based nasties to your soil). Having it printed in vegetable inks makes all the difference. 97% of our literature is printed with vegetable based inks and is therefore safe for your compost. Yes, scented popcorn fragranced with essential oils would compost nicely – our Eco Flo packing foam is produced in a similar way to popcorn and is fully compostable. I will pass on the suggestion about using a fragrance to our packing team.

Have a great Christmas!

Geoff