Eco Friendly Christmas – remember our planet this year!
We’re all now aware of the need to protect our environment as much as possible for the future of the planet!
At PKS we make our products, like our personalised water bottle bands – or water bottle id bands – with the environment in mind, making them durable, from eco friendly materials and also recyclable. We also make the best Montessori toys for toddlers as well as children’s cutlery sets UK.
With the festive season coming up fast it’s time to start planning a more eco friendly Christmas! Remember that little things add up to make big differences – especially if lots of people make small changes! As an example, our children’s first cutlery set is made from recyclable stainless steel and silicone! It’s really great adapted cutlery for children.
Let’s start with the basics….
Eco Friendly Christmas Wrapping Paper
Want to avoid all that sparkly paper you can’t recycle sitting in the bin after the presents have been opened?
Why not buy recyclable paper or brown paper you can decorate yourself? It can be really fun to get the kids to help decorate brown paper for wrapping – and it makes any gift extra special!
Fabric bags are also an attractive alternative – find them on Etsy. You can make your own from scraps of material if you have some simple sewing things! Again, this is something that makes any present extra special and more personal!
Eco Friendly Christmas Cards
Gone are the days when the best cards were the biggest, most glittery!
Buy recyclable cards made from sustainable sources – avoid glittery cards that can’t be recycled.
A lot of councils have a card recycling point or collection after Christmas.
After Christmas, before you send them for recycling, cards can make great playthings for younger children – they can cut them up and stick bits to paper to make a great collage!
If you don’t want to send actual cards then there are lots of fantastic virtual cards to choose from!
Eco Friendly Christmas tree
You can buy rooted trees that can be planted in the garden, or even rent a tree! Love a Christmas Tree offer real fir trees that you can rent and they’ll pick up your tree and take it away once you’ve finished with it!
Failing that, a locally grown tree is much better as it reduces the tree’s mileage and means that you don’t have to use lots of fuel to go and get it!
Fake plastic trees might seem like an eco friendly option – but in fact a real tree is much more sustainable as you’d have to use a fake tree over 20 times – that’s probably 20 years – to make it as sustainable as a real tree!
Our personalised rubber bands for bottles would be great Christmas tree accessories!
Eco Friendly Christmas Crackers
We all love a Christmas Cracker – especially kids! Christmas wouldn’t be quite the same without crackers. Traditional crackers though are very wasteful and end up in the bin after Christmas dinner. Now we need to avoid unnecessary waste – but there are good alternatives on sale!
Try reusable crackers – Etsy have a great selection! Items inside can be different each year so you still get the element of surprise!
If you’re making your own crackers, then our water bottle bands are just the right size to fit inside!
Eco Friendly Christmas Dinner
Plan for the right number of people to avoid food waste! If possible, buy local produce and plan carefully to ensure you have the right amount of food.
While a vegan Christmas dinner is perfect, it’s unlikely to suit everyone! So it’s best to buy locally sourced meat or turkey, organic is ideal.
Try making your own cake and biscuits – this is rewarding and reduces packaging! The kids will love making spiced biscuits and the smell of home baking is so much better than the rustle of packaging!
Our children’s stainless steel cutlery sets UK are perfect for toddlers attacking the Christmas dinner!
Eco Friendly Christmas Advent calendars
There’s now a good range of reusable advent calendars on sale – you can fill with your own gifts or just little messages or poems! These cut out the waste generated by the popular chocolate advent calendars that just get thrown away!
Eco Friendly Christmas lights
Christmas isn’t Christmas without fairy lights! LED lights are a reasonably eco friendly option, using 80% less energy than traditional fairy lights. They also look stunning!
It’s possible to purchase solar powered lights but in the winter the sun isn’t always easy to come by so this might not be such a reliable option!
Eco Friendly Christmas decorations
Bringing natural decorations in from the garden is a great idea for festive decorating. Fir cones look fantastic in a bowl, stems of Cornus look amazing in a tall vase. Why not go out to the woods with the kids and see what you can find to make natural decorations!
Spend a rainy weekend afternoon making some decorations with the kids – a brilliant idea is to dry slices of orange, lemon or lime by putting them in a low oven for a couple of hours. You can then use the slices in bowls around the house and they will give a wonderful citrus smell!
Or try the old Tudor custom of putting cloves into oranges and hanging them around the house. All you need to do is stick the cloves into the orange, thread a piece of string around it and you have a wondrously Christmassy smelling hanging decoration!
Eco Friendly Christmas gifts
Try to think carefully about the gifts you buy for others – and those you ask for yourself!
PKS make great, sustainable products that make perfect kids’ Christmas gifts! Try our Personalised Bottle Bands – they make a wonderful Christmas stocking filler or inexpensive kids’ Christmas gift. Made from BPA free silicone they are durable and sustainable – an ideal eco friendly gift!
Our Personalised Toddler Cutlery also makes a very special kids’ Christmas present! Put it in the stocking or wrapped up in recyclable paper on the tree and your young children will love using them at mealtimes!
Our Wooden affordable Montessori toys are also great as gifts!
This year make sure you have a more Eco Friendly Christmas – plus it could even cost you less! It’ll definitely mean less waste so less clearing up and fewer bags out for the dustmen to collect!
Happy Eco Friendly Christmas planning – keep an eye on our website for more sustainable products coming soon!
