the times Saturday December 4 20216Weekend
W
e have never been
more aware of our
need to do our
bit to protect the
environment. So
how can we be
merry while sim-
ultaneously keeping our impact as low as
possible? Christmas is actually a great time
to implement sustainability. For a start,
there’s a structure to it, and being environ-
mentally friendly is often about planning
and preparation. And the festive season
is built on sustainable traditions —
Christmas lunch is a prime example,
descended from times before just-in-time
supply chains and chiller cabinets, and
decorations from days gone by didn’t
involve plastic. Don’t worry, no one is
asking you to make papier-mâché baubles
(unless you want to). Eco-Christmas is
more about circular reusing and repurpos-
ing. Here’s what to do.Rent your
Christmas tree
It is time to spruce up your tree game by
becoming a “custodian” instead of a con-
sumer. The Christmas tree rental market
is growing 30 per cent year on year, and
as hiring a Nordmann fir or Norway
spruce tends towards standard
practice, the service is becoming
more commonplace throughout the
country. There are, of course, rental
services in London (greenelf
trees.co.uk and christmason
thehill.co.uk), with trees
ranging from 2ft to 4ft, but
there are some as far afield as
Leicestershire (loveachristmas
tree.co.uk), with 3ft-4ft or 4ft-5ft
trees still available, and Glouces-
tershire (rentalclaus.com), with a
limited availability online but
a full selection available to personal
callers.
Some families who were ahead of
the game are now on their third or
fourth year of rental with the same
trees. You rent a tree from a farm or
nursery for the Christmas period,
and it is replanted there after-
wards. Prices range from £35 to
£75, depending on the size of tree
and where in the UK you live,
and you’ll also need to pay a de-
posit, usually £15 to £20. The
latter is fully refundable ifthe market for new ornaments, try
garlands made from wool felt and lights
wrapped in colourful felt — they are 100
per cent renewable, and there will be no
shedding of microplastics. The Felt Studio
has lights that are handmade in Nepal and
wrapped with New Zealand wool (£22.50;
thefeltstudioshop.com).
And you could also make existing
baubles and tinsel work harder by keeping
them in service (if you have an artificial
tree or wreath, they need to be kept for at
least ten years to offset the energy used in
their production).Clean your oven before
the turkey goes in
Clean your oven before the festive season
— it’s going to be working hard and you
want maximum efficiency (especially in
these days of soaring energy costs). It’s
good eco-practice to try to get the most out
of a hot oven, and this includes cooking in
big batches and using the right cookware
— glass and ceramics are the most effi-
cient for inside the oven. If you’re cooking
a turkey on Christmas Day, you might con-
sider turning down the heating thermostat
by one degree as well. And remember that
the trusty microwave is the most energy-
efficient way of cooking vegetables and
heating up leftovers.Make your Christmas
dinner trimmings vegan
On the big day it’s animal products that ac-
count for most of the carbon cost. Accord-
ing to research from Harvard University, a
roast turkey with potatoes cooked in goose
fat, pigs in blankets, and meat stuffing and
gravy emits the CO 2 equivalent of driving
nearly 80 miles in a petrol car. Swap some
of your trimmings for vegan alternativesHow to have the
eco-friendliest
Christmas
Rent your Christmas tree — and your party dress —
clean your oven before cooking the turkey and ditch
the Sellotape, says environmental expert Lucy Siegle
you don’t damage or kill the tree, perhaps
by forgetting to water it (they need about a
pint a day) or crisping it up by leaving it
next to a radiator. After being collected
and returned to their farms after Christ-
mas, rental trees are replanted so they can
fulfil their most important
purpose — sucking in and storing carbon.
Some eight million trees will be thrown
away in January, and if they are not
chipped and recycled they will release 6kg
of CO 2 each — the equivalent in pollution
terms of driving from London to South-
ampton. And even if they are chopped and
chipped, they still release 50 per cent of the
CO 2 they absorbed while growing.Only kiss underneath
sustainable mistletoe
I want us to take every opportunity to
reconnect Christmas with nature. This
includes sourcing holly and mistletoe
sustainably. If you’re taking from the wild,
don’t take too much, and do your picking
with the care and research that should go
into foraging for any wild-grown plant.
Mistletoe, in particular, needs a boost. As
a traditional by-product of the apple
orchards in the Midlands, it has declined
as those orchards have fallen out of
use. One of the best things you can do
is to buy mistletoe from those who are
growing and harvesting it sustainably
— order from kissmemistletoe.co.uk or
abelandcole.co.uk.Put fairy lights
on a timer
The good news is that modern Christmas
lights tend to be LEDs, requiring less elec-
tricity to run than those of days gone by.
But they still have an impact — the
total amount of CO 2 generated by
Christmas lights each year in the UK
could fill 15,500 hot-air balloons, ac-
cording to the Energy Saving Trust,
and the conservation charity Bu-
glife warned last week that
Christmas lights could adverse-
ly affect the mating and hunt-
ing behaviour of nocturnal
animals. Meanwhile, retail
analysts are reporting
that sales of neon lights
are up 2,000 per cent
from last year. Put-
ting your lights on
a timer will giveyou a sustainable twinkle. For external fes-
tive illuminations, go for smaller, solar-
powered lights that charge during the day.The chicest way to wrap
a parcel? Use fabric
I’m with Julie Andrews with my love of
(Forest Stewardship Council-certified)
brown-paper packages tied up with string.
It’s chic and dodges the annual wrapping
paper tsunami, with 227,000 miles of
wrapping paper used in the UK each year
— enough to gift-wrap Guernsey, should
you wish to do so. Remember, when you
see a gloss, a sheen or a reflective surface
on wrapping paper, or Sellotape has been
used enthusiastically, this means in effect
that a layer of plastic has been added, and
it will not be recycled (our mainstream
recycling system doesn’t like different
materials). The coolest look this season?
Fabric wrapping. Wrag Wrap is my favour-
ite champion of reusable fabric wrap in the
UK, bringing together joy and eco-friend-
liness by providing fabric made from re-
cycled bottles (wragwrap.com). Included
in the range is the Crackle, a double-
layered fabric with a crinkly inner that
makes a satisfying sound when you
unwrap. You can either buy the wrap or
rent a pack of 50 types of packaging,
from big sheets to gift bags, and return it by
January 31 — there is a hefty deposit,
but you will gain kudos for being a true
trailblazer.Don’t buy plastic
baubles — try felt
It’s easy to get festive stress from imagin-
ing all the microplastic-shedding in your
home from strings of tinsel and fake
garlands, to say nothing of the oil used to
make all those plastic baubles. If you are intree game by
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