It’s the day after boxing day. We all roll out of bed, feeling a bit overfull, a bit sluggish….. Time doesn’t exist and we no longer know what day it even is anymore! This year instead, let’s not roll out of bed, but jump! With this helpful guide, we can explore what you can do to shift that guilt of overconsumption by reducing your waste.

​1. Food, Glorious Food

22.8 million carrots/parsnips
17.2 million sprouts
11.3 million roasties
 7.9 million cups of stuffing
7.5 million mince pies
263,000 turkeys (7.9 million slices)

​(and a partridge in a pear tree…apologies, force of habit). This is what’s taken to landfill, just from our Christmas festivities in the UK, per year. This is the equivalent of 4.2 million Christmas dinners!

A study some ten years ago by the University of Manchester calculated that our combined Christmas dinners produced the same carbon footprint as a single car travelling 6,000 times around the world.

​So if you open your fridge and realise that you’ve overstuffed more than just the turkey this year – don’t panic. It doesn’t all need eating in 24 hours.

Instead, you can love your freezer, save the pennies and feel prepared for future meals – winner, winner, turkey dinner!

Many people assume you can only freeze food on the day of purchase. If you were in this camp, there’s an exciting freezer food future awaiting! Most things can be frozen but if you are unsure, Kate at The Full Freezer has an amazing "Can I freeze it?" section on her website, and Love Food Hate Waste also has a fab "A-Z of food storage". Or turn your leftovers into meal ideas and there are even ideas out there for turning that last glass of red wine left in the bottle into a yummy dessert!

If you still have more leftovers than room in your freezer, why not donate some to an elderly neighbour, local food bank or soup kitchen? (Just double check first what they can and can't accept). Whilst you’re doing a sort out you could also check your cupboards for any tinned food, still in date, that you haven’t used and are happy to donate? Other items, such as dried fruits (soaked to make softer), mash/baked/roast potatoes and mince pies (made with animal fat) can be broken up for the birds to happily tuck into.  

How about the leftovers you can’t make a meal from? It is estimated that composting these rather than chucking them in your rubbish bin to go to landfill saves one tonne of carbon dioxide per tonne of food. So those leftover vegetable peelings from yesterday, that you haven’t yet binned, chuck them in the compost and celebrate your carbon reductions!
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2. O’ Christmas Tree, O’ Christmas Tree

Next up, the leading actor, the protagonist of the Christmas festivities: O’ Christmas Tree what do we do with you? For real trees, there is SO much you can do, it’s rather exciting really!

If you have a garden, you can use your Christmas tree as a bird station and watch your tree come to life! You can hang roast potatoes or leftover fruit with jute string or make your own homemade fat balls or you could hang your jar lid feeders which you'll have made after reading part 2!

​If you get bored of your bird station you can always use your tree for mulch/composting (you will just need to chop the tree’s branches and then the trunk into smaller pieces to speed up the decomposition). Equally, once you’ve left your tree outside for a little while, it will dry out and become less sappy and sticky, excellent for use in craft projects, including making simple but effective coasters (that’s next year’s gifts sorted for the family). Even better for your carbon footprint is to replant your tree for next year if the roots are still intact.

If you don’t have a garden, or don’t wish to use your Christmas tree within your own garden, then there are plenty of other options. You can ask your local zoo or safari whether they wish to take it – many zoos accept Christmas trees from households to provide enrichments for their big cats, kangaroos, camels, wolves and for nutritional value for their elephants (Christmas trees contain oils aiding to their digestion). Petting zoos, or anyone you know with goats or pigs, will most likely take it, as a branch of a Christmas tree is a favourite snack for goats and pigs!

Alternatively, you can contact your local council who often arrange special collection of real trees in early January to shred them into chippings to use locally in parks and woodland areas. Otherwise, there are some organisations or charities that offer ‘treecycling’ including JustHelping who raised over £500,000 for charities and hospices by collecting and recycling over 44,228 trees last year.

If you're hungry for more, head over to part two for our next easy tips on how to make your Christmas more sustainable.

TAKE ME TO PART TWO