The Times - UK - 04.12.2021

the times Saturday December 4 2021

We e ke n d 7

SHUTTERSTOCK; GETTY IMAGES; MARK HARRISON/CAMERA PRESS

— including cooking
your potatoes in vegeta-
ble oil instead of goose fat — and this drops
by nearly two thirds. Try Marks & Spen-
cer’s No Pork Pigs in Duvets, or assemble
your own from Quorn bacon and cocktail
sausages. Cook sage-and-onion stuffing
outside the bird, and don’t forget the vegg-
ie gravy — if you can’t face making it
yourself, try M&S Plant Kitchen’s ready-
made option (please wash and reuse the
plastic tub).

Limit your portion sizes
Dishing out huge portions has been shown
to contribute to the annual spectacular
festive food waste. Some two million
turkeys, five million Christmas puddings,
17.2 million sprouts; 11.9 million carrots
and 11.3 million roast potatoes are typically
dumped over the festive season in the
UK. That’s 270,000 tonnes of food waste,
one of the primary drivers of climate
change. Instead, ask your guests to serve
themselves at the dinner table, so that
everyone takes only the amount they want
to eat.

Give away your leftovers
If all else fails, try the Olio app, which will
help you to save your festive fare from be-
coming waste. Olio has diverted 30 million
meals from waste since it launched in 2016.
Using the app you can advertise good food
that you’re unable to eat to neighbours and
local businesses, so that it can be shared
instead of thrown away (you can also share
non-food household items such as clean-
ing products). If you know that you’re
going to be cooking a large meal and there
will be leftovers, you can plan ahead. Go to
the app, tap on “Rescue my surplus food”,
fill in the details about your festive feast,
and a volunteer will arrange to collect and
redistribute it (olioex.com).

A turkey dinner

emits the CO 2

equivalent of

driving nearly

80 miles in

a petrol car

Borrow

your

party dress

According to Oxfam,

1.7 million sequinned

items that won’t ever

biodegrade (the se-

quins being tiny discs

of plastic) are binned

in the UK after the fes-

tive party season. Re-

search commissioned

by the environmental

organisation Hubbub

tells us that seven

million adults plan to

buy at least one new

piece of clothing for this

year’s parties, and three

million of these are

planning to buy online,

returning at least one

item. Thanks to the rise

of clothing rental plat-

forms, you can still very

much go to the ball and

help the environment.

By Rotation, a peer-to-

peer lending app, also

features pieces prev-

iously worn by celebri-

ties, with the rental fee do-

nated to charity (byrota-

tion.com).

Make your

Christmas cake

The impact of your

Christmas diet depends

a lot on how much sugar

you consume — envi-

ronmentally it is one of

the most impactful com-

modities because plan-

tations often uproot

areas of tropical forests. According to a

Manchester University study that evaluat-

ed the sustainability of cakes, ready-made

refrigerated cheesecakes have the most

environmental impact. Meanwhile, a

homemade Christmas cake is very low-

impact. Sun-dried fruit is imported by ship,

so is fairly sustainable, and its sweetness

offsets some sugar use. Making a cake at

home, even accounting for long cooking

times and loads of marzipan, removes the

impact of packaging and manufacturing.

And you can keep it in a tin for a long time.

Make a ball out of your

Quality Street wrappers

As a traditional Christmas involves at least

some quality time with a tub of chocolate

treats, it pays to have a wrapper-recycling

strategy. The good news is that the more

you eat, the easier this will be, mainly

because you need to bundle up the small

foil wrappers — if you eat enough you can

make a foil cricket ball, which can be put

into standard recycling (individually, the

little pieces of foil just get lost). The bejew-

elled outer wrappers are made of a compo-

stable cellophane, but you’ll need to put

them in your garden bin, as many councils

won’t take them in compost caddies (they

don’t break down quickly enough).

Try eco-friendly beer

This year’s festive drinks cabinet should

include a hint of climate revolution. Opt

for the new “regenerative” class of spirits,

beers, wines, perry and cider. For example,

the Oxford Artisan Distillery’s primary

grain in its range of spirits is ancient rye.

All ingredients are hyper-local — from

within a 50-mile radius — and it is

committed to supporting nature and

building health back into the soils. This is

a world away from the industrial alcohol

bought in by most distillers. If you’re a beer

drinker, Toast Ale (toastale.com) is a craft

brew founded by the anti-waste activist

Tristram Stuart that is made from surplus

bread. Or check out the gin from a small

distillery on the Isle of Harris that is

infused with sugar kelp, harvested by hand

from local lochs. Because the spiral-glass

bottles are much too lovely to chuck out,

the distillery has introduced a refill sub-

scription service — one year is £346.50,

and you get a monthly 500ml aluminium

refill bottle (harrisdistillery.com).

Wear a festive

eco-jumper

Nothing says Christmas cheer like wear-

ing a loud jumper. But make sure that a

garment you wear for a few hours doesn’t

become an indestructible piece of clothing

waste for eternity. To do this, look to Not

Just Clothing, a social enterprise focused

on ways to minimise some of the impact of

the garment industry. Its Christmas

jumper — the Attenbrr — is made from

90 per cent recycled plastic bottles and

10 per cent recycled acrylic yarn, and it is

cool enough to wear for multiple years

(£34.99, notjustclothing.co.uk).

Send back your

packaging

The average household gets through

an estimated five extra sackfuls of waste

over Christmas — which translates to

1.4 tonnes of CO 2. So this year buy fresh

Christmas ingredients through delivery

schemes, especially that take back the box,

as is the case with Riverford Organics

(riverford.co.uk). Or try the new returna-

ble packaging system Loop (explore

loop.com), which has decanted nearly 90

products, from muesli to moisturiser, into

reusable, durable packaging (granola

comes in a tin, for example) — find a

participating Tesco store, download the

app and return your packaging at the

reuse station (your 20p deposit payable on

each product is refundable via the app).

Meanwhile, the Seep cleaning hamper is a

no-waste version of everything you need

for a thorough pre-Christmas eco-clean

(£45; theseepcompany.com).

Give the gift of a repair

We all know that we have too much stuff

because our sock drawers are full, so I’m

suggesting giving vouchers for top-notch

repair and restoration — londonwatch

repairs.co.uk for broken timepieces,

ambrosia-bears.co.uk for soft toys, the-

restory.com for those posh wedding shoes,

or, perhaps most useful in this digital age,

sparkangels.co.uk for smartphone repairs.

Shop local

Short supply chains typically create less

of an environmental footprint, so the

closer to home you can buy your

Christmas produce, the better. Given that

Christmas dinner predates fridges, its de-

pendency on seasonal veg and fattened

birds is naturally sustainable. Venison and

game birds are traditional alternatives

to turkey and have a lower carbon foot-

print. What’s more, the issues that super-

markets are having with just-in-time sup-

ply chains — hit by a shortage of labour in

food processing and transport — are af-

fecting the availability of processed or

more complicated ready-made products

(there has been a warning on ready-made

pigs in blankets, for example). So the

practical as well as ethical answer is to

place your orders with local farms and

farm shops, and make as much as you

can yourself.

Great

green gifts

Allbirds women’s Tree Dasher

trainers (renewable materials,

carbon neutral) £120, allbirds.co.uk

Kair clothing wash gift set

(vegan, free from phthalates) £40,

wolfandbadger.com

Small hoop earrings (made from

a by-product of the oil industry)

£260, dinosaurdesigns.co.uk

Gold shopping bag (vegan, made

from pineapple leaves) £164,

originalsatchelstore.com

Fais warm spice-

scented soy

candle (vegan,

made from natural

ingredients) £19,

wearthlondon.com

Recycled blown

glass lamp base

(100 per cent

recycled glass)

£88.50,

therecycledglass

warecompany.

co.uk

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