Downsize your Christmas carbon footprint

Following on from my tips for eco Christmas decorations, here are a few more good pointers to keep your Christmas carbon footprint from making you a first rate eco-scrooge.

The Meal: Using durable and good quality serving ware instead of disposable stuff keeps your footprint and your spending low. Better still, buying recycled glass plates and glasses means that you are actually reusing resources rather than fuelling the need to process new ones. EcoCentric sell a beautiful range of recycled glass crockery which will make any Christmas table look elegant and stylish. If you can't afford to buy new crockery, then there are often interesting vintage finds at charity shops, or the option of renting it if you're catering for unusually large numbers. If you do want to buy disposable plates and cups, then paper as the best choice as it can be composted along with the rest of the Christmas food waste.

The Wrapping: rubbish mounts up extremely fast over the Christmas period, but there are lots of things we can do to minimise the cost to the environment. Gifts can be wrapped in recycled paper, old maps, comics, newspapers or any colourful paper. Choose gifts that don't need to be wrapped, or make the wrapping part of the gift - a vintage scarf or a snazzy tea towel for example. Gift tags can be made from last years Christmas cards artfully cut out and threaded through with a piece of ribbon. Importantly, make sure to recycle all possible packaging and wrapping. We've found that kids absolutely love the new Ovetto recycling bin - it's made from recycled plastic and has three handy compartments for three types of recycling. Recycling has never been so fun and stylish!