Reducing Christmas Waste

Christmas is for many a time of celebration and overdoing it! This often also results in an increase of waste. In fact, as a country our waste goes up 30% at Christmas time! The main reasons for this are, wrapping paper, packaging and food waste.

Australians use more than 150,000km of wrapping paper during Christmas (enough to wrap around Earth's equator nearly 4 times!) and 90% of Aussies usually discard over 25% of their food during the festive period!

Tips for your household

If you are reading this it is likely that you are already taking of have taken steps to reduce your waste and live a little lighter on our planet. Here are some tips for  lowering waste at Christmas for yourself or perhaps use this to start a conversation with a family member of friend about things they can do too.

• Sending e-cards and emails instead of Christmas cards and letters
• Wrap gifts in cloth or a tea towel instead of wrapping paper
• Gift experiences instead of things
• Request a donation to your favourite charity instead of a gift or no gifts at all
• Make space in your fridge and freezer for leftovers
• Get a compost system for your food waste or use Sharewaste to find somewhere local to take your waste
• Make your own Christmas decorations or borrow some bunting from Boomerang Bunting 
• Regift that unwanted gift or put it on your local Buy Nothing Group