How to Have a Sustainable Christmas In 2022?

Due to the alarming climatic changes, most of us are already switching towards mindful and sustainable living in our daily lives. Christmas is the best time to choose sustainable living and contribute to a better future by choosing eco-friendly gifting options and finding ways to reduce food waste.

Christmas brings happiness and joy among families and adds a spark to the atmosphere, but it also results in a lot of gift packaging piles and food wastage in the name of celebration. In this article, I am sharing a few ways to encourage you to celebrate a more sustainable Christmas in 2022.

4 Ways To Celebrate Christmas in a Sustainable Way 

1.) Choosing The Gift: When you plan to buy gifts for this Christmas, consider eco-friendly options for gifting. You may consider items that can be reused and have zero waste. Most of the time Christmas gifts just end up in the landfill, this Christmas you might think of gifting an experience like a gift voucher, or a movie ticket or helping them sign up for the course they wanted, or skill they wanted to learn. 

You can look at ethical and eco-friendly gift options by brands like Wearth.

2.) Food For Thought: Food wastage is already a serious problem and with the festivities around the amount of consumption, cooking for Christmas dinner parties and gatherings ultimately leads to a chunk of food waste. As per a report, at Christmas, an incredible 5 million Christmas puddings, 2 million turkeys, and 74 million mince pies succumb to the scrap heap while still edible. Food that is just thrown out makes up 40% of food waste generated in the UK and is currently disposed of via landfill. 

We can plan our meals and resist the urge to impulse buy. Deciding what to cook for Christmas dinner could be imbibed by being responsible and serving guests the best you can.

3.) Packaging Matters: Since gifting is an integral part of Christmas, Gift Wrapping becomes an essential one. It includes a lot of decorative items, wrapping and packaging paper resulting in tonnes of plastic packaging dumped in the bin every year during the Christmas period. ​​ 

We can put some extra thought into it and use wrapping paper made from recycled paper. We can avoid using plastic ribbon or foil-backed wrapping paper. You might like to check the traditional Japanese method of using a cloth to wrap gifts called ‘Furoshiki’. It is indeed a zero-waste gift-wrapping technique, looks  beautiful and makes reusable packaging.    

4.) Support Small Business: When we buy gifts for our near and loved ones it is the experience that matters the most to them, the thoughtfulness while purchasing the gift adds a lot of value. And, it would be great to make your Christmas special by opting to support local businesses and go local shopping.

You may discover local handcraft gifting ideas by visiting Christmas fairs or even for your cooking needs you might visit the local shops and buy the local produce.

If you choose to follow any such sustainable measures to make your Christmas more eco-friendly and encourage your friends and family members to do the same, this way you can consciously contribute towards the betterment of the planet. Merry Christmas!