Ideas for a more sustainable festive season
Budget-friendly activities and ideas to be more environmentally friendly this year
Originally pubished 9 December 2019.
With a bit of planning, you can make this festive season a more environmentally friendly one.
Being more sustainable means finding daily ways you can help look after your environment. Here are our top tips for easy ways to reduce waste, have fun, and enjoy a more sustainable holiday season this year. Remember that many actions you take to become more environmentally friendly can count towards earning your Eco award!
Banish the bin
This time of year is full of sparkle – but it can also be full of waste, from packaging and wrapping paper to unwanted gifts and food that ends up being thrown away. Girls can think about how best to reuse old things and reduce waste with the recycling (Rainbows), zero waste (Brownies) and upcycling (Guides) interest badges.
Reuse and rewrap
Did you know that many Christmas wrapping papers can’t be recycled? Recycle Now suggests avoiding foil gift wrap and anything with added glitter. If you’re not sure if it can be recycled or not, try the scrunch test.
Crumple a piece of wrapping paper - if it unfolds when you open your hand, it can’t be recycled. Paper that stays scrunched up in a ball is safe to put in the recycling.’ - Recycle Now
Instead of buying wrapping paper, you could try making your own. Old newspaper or brown paper can be transformed into eco-friendly wrapping paper with festive patterns using potato stamps and natural colourings.
Read our guiding magazine article about reusing and rewrapping for ideas, including transforming newspapers into gift bags, decorating thrifted baskets and other old containers, and furoshiki, the Japanese art of fabric wrapping.
You can also try creating your own beeswax wrap with our wrap it up unit meeting activity.
Choose gifts with care
Think about choosing Fairtrade products, ethically produced fashion or local sustainably made gifts this Christmas. And if you want to try something different, why not give the gift of an experience instead?
The conscious consumer interest badge gets Guides to think about what they buy and where their presents might have come from.
Girls can also try upcycling old materials into something new. Rainbows can earn their present maker interest badge by creating home-made gifts.
Save on food waste
Over 4 million Christmas dinners are wasted during the festive season, as many of us buy more food than we need to. This doesn’t just have an impact on your wallet, it has an impact on the environment too. To save on food waste, why not try finding clever recipes to use up your leftovers?
Rangers could create their own book of Christmas recipes to earn their cooking interest badge.
Try making a new type of Christmas tree…
If you have old magazines and paper lying around, you could try turning them into a unique folding Christmas tree.
One Rainbows unit made their own full-size Christmas tree out of non-recyclable plastic waste from the local hospital, including a drip stand!
…or recycle your real tree
If you’re choosing a real tree, make sure to recycle it when you’ve finished with it. Local authorities often arrange drop-off points or special collections of trees in early January so they can be turned into chippings for use in local parks and woodland areas.
You can use this recycling locator tool to find out what your local authority collects and when.
Pass on any unwanted gifts
You may not want that third pair of socks you’ve been gifted, but someone will! Give unwanted gifts to charity shops, or if they’re edible, take them along to your local food bank. Making donations can count as 1 of your actions toward earning your Eco award.
