So the big day is nearly upon us again.

Hopefully you’ve already been busy upcycling random stuff into Christmas presents and recycled Christmas decorations – it’s easy to keep the green theme going after Christmas too.

Give away unwanted gifts & replaced items

Don’t wait until you spring clean – declutter now while all the new additions are fresh in your mind.

Give away items that you don’t want or won’t use, or old items that have been replaced by something shiny and new – the sooner you give it away, the sooner someone else will get some use out of it, and it might stop them having to buy new-new in the January sales.

Reuse wrapping paper

Don’t throw away wrapping paper – reuse it instead. The bigger pieces can be flattened out and used again (kids especially won’t notice the same paper being used year on year), or made into reusable paper gift bags.

Smaller pieces can be used to make gift tags, festive envelopes or used to revamp Christmas decorations for use next year.

Particularly creased pieces can be shredded to provide protective cushioning for gifts throughout the year – or to protect delicate Christmas decorations while in storage, which brings me neatly onto…

Be kind to your Christmas decorations

Store them away carefully and you’ll be able to use them year on year – meaning less waste going to landfill and reducing your need to buy new stuff.

As well as shredded wrapping paper, you can use packaging (such as moulded expanded polystyrene foam and formed plastic) from new toys or gadgets to protect delicate items. Wrap tinsel and strings of Christmas lights around a kitchen roll tube or a plastic bottle to avoid tangling. Label boxes so you can find them again easily.

If you don’t have any space for storage, don’t throw away decorations – pack them away neatly and offer them on Freecycle/Freegle.

Reuse or recycle your Christmas cards

Similarly, keep your favourite Christmas cards to one side – possibly tucked into a decorations box – to recycle into gift tags or recycled decorations next year. Cut others into narrow strips to use as shopping lists – the card is easier to write on than paper when you’re on the go. Keep large cards for crafts – for when you need thin but strong card. There are lots of different ways to reuse them.

If you can’t see yourself reusing them, plenty of high street shops have recycling collection bins especially for cards – typically WH Smith, Tesco and M&S – often with a donation going from the store to a related charity (such as the Woodland Trust) for every bin of cards collected. Some charity shops also collect cards for reusing/upcycling into gift tags and the like – ask around to see who is collecting them in your area.

Use up every single bit of your turkey – and other food

A lot of energy went into growing the bird, transporting it around and cooking it – so make the most of it by using up all the leftover meat and making stock from the carcass.

Use leftover veg to make soup, stews and stock.

Use leftover Christmas cake to make fruity rum truffles – or throw it outside for wild birds to eat.

If don’t think you’re going to get through all your Christmas biscuits or mince pies, be proactive about it before they go stale – freeze some for later consumption (keep the festival spirit going all January!) or give them away to someone else – they might be very grateful for free treats!

What are your favourite ways to reduce waste at Christmas?

(Photos by soultga, Tombre and Vanessa Fitzgerald)

Today we’re putting a spin our usual “how can I reduce this…” question after an email from Martine:

I hate having to buy sandwiches every day but I can’t get into the habit of making lunch in the morning. I do it for a couple of days then stop. I hate spending all that money and making so much waste!! Do you or your readers have any have tips on how I could get into the habit of making them?

Don’t limit yourself to thinking that lunch == sandwiches. When I worked away from home, I wasn’t very good at making sandwiches but I was pretty good at taking leftovers. I think I found my homemade sandwiches pretty uninspiring but a portion of pasta salad or curry & rice to warm up in the microwave, mmm. I think it helped that I could prepare those the night before and not worry about the bread going hard/soggy etc – I’m not at my best in the mornings.

I have a friend who, for weight maintenance and frugal reasons, eats porridge for lunch most days – once a fortnight, he’ll weigh out all the dry ingredients (including some dried fruit) into portions into individual containers so he can just grab one on the way out of the door each day. (He makes some with powdered milk in case he doesn’t have access to fresh milk some days.)

These days, since both John and I work from home, we eat lunch at home but on Wednesday evenings, I teach drama so am out of the house at dinner time. I usually eat when I get back but try to take a snack with me to save me having to buy biscuits or chocolate as a pick-me-up when I’m out – something like flavoured crackers which doesn’t need refrigeration and won’t go off if left in my bag until the following week.

What do the rest of you do? Do you make your sandwiches or lunches every day? Any suggestions on how to get someone into the habit of doing it? Or alternatives to sandwiches?

(Photo by t_trace)

We’ve had an email from Su:

I do like to tax the minds of all who read these sites, not intentionally, but in a ‘why don’t I know how to do that’ sort of way.

Here goes, I collect all the water from my washing machine, and use it to flush the loo. However, hauling watering cans of water up the stairs with a frozen shoulder is not especially easy. So I would like to construct (if possible) some sort of pump, preferably from reused bits. Unfortunately, I have not the remotest idea where to start!

I can easily put a pipe out of the bathroom window into the container of water, but it would be easiest if the pump, or at least the switch was at the ‘top’ end, so that I don’t end up running up and down stairs to switch it on and off. Would a washing machine pump (not that I have one lying around) do the job? Could it be solar powered?

All ideas gratefully received.

I haven’t had much experience with setting up greywater systems so I can’t really advice – hopefully someone else will be in a better position to comment. As someone who has an incredibly vertical house, I’d love to learn more about options for pumping water too.

One thing I will say though is could you change it around so you don’t need to pump upwards? For example, using greywater from shower/bath for the toilet, and using the stuff from the washing machine elsewhere (such as on the garden, if it’s chemical free). It obviously depends on the set up of your home – there might not be storage room on that level for the water – but it might be easier to rejig things that way then get a powered pump working.

Any ideas, suggestions or advice?

Continuing in our Green Halloween series…

What with food safety issues and all the urban legends about razor blades & whatnot, nearly all trick-or-treat treats these days are shop-bought and individually wrapped – possibly the worst way to eat sweets or chocolate in terms of packaging waste, especially as it’s mostly plastic wrappers which can’t be recycled.

Do you do anything to minimise the amount of sweetie packaging you give out – or collect?

What are the most reusable or recyclable options?

One way of to reduce, of course, is to opt out of the whole trick or treating thing altogether – but are there any other alternatives?

And while we’ve covered this before in the long dim and distant past, any new reusing/upcycling ideas for the wrappers – transparent ones like in the picture or opaque ones used on mini chocolate bars etc?

(Photo by eisenbahner)

We’ve kinda touched on this topic before when talking about reusing and recycling disposable razors but that was a long time ago and I thought it might be worth bringing it up again.

As when we were talking about it in 2007, I still use disposable razors occasionally – perhaps one a month since I’m still not particularly hairy or bothered, and use a rechargable electric razor for my legs. In the grand scale of things, it’s not exactly a lot of waste but it still bugs me to use anything that’s designed to be disposable.

(The electric one obviously uses power but other than that, they last a good while – the batteries on my rechargable ones tend to die every 3/4 years, but John’s got a mains powered one that will last years and years – his dad’s has been going for 20+ years apparently.)

On the old post, some people said they’d given up disposable razors (or more commonly disposable razor blades attached to a reusable handle) in favour of a traditional straight razor (aka cut-throat razor) – and they’ve never looked back. However, they’re only good for smooth/tight skin – not very useful for armpits, or the back of legs.

So what are the other options? What do you do?