Welcome 2020 the Eco-friendly way!🎆

I don't know how you celebrate the New Year, partying, seeing family, maybe even sleeping through it! Whatever you do, you're probably gonna end up throwing things away. Confetti, food, paper plates, napkins, etc. You may not, which is very good, and you may know where I'm going with this.

To throw an Eco friendly party (which you definitely should) you could:

• Make confetti from scrap paper 🎉 (newspaper, magazines you don't need, old wrapping paper!!)
• Make your own bunting from fabric you don't need (if you don't have any fabric, don't worry about this craft because if you go and buy fabric it's basically just buying the bunting anyway.)
• Buy high quality fairy lights (after the ones you had before definitely don't work anymore) which you can use in the years to come.

You should not buy balloons, glitter and glossy banners to decorate your house though because they are all usually non-recyclable.

If you are wanting to treat your guests with some food, to stay Eco friendly you can easily ask your guests to bring some homemade food themselves!👩‍🍳 To make it better, split people into different things (like dips, mains, deserts, salads etc.) so each person or family brings something different to everyone else and you don't have too much of a type of food. The guests can also bring their own dishes and pots to serve their food on, to take home afterwards.

If you are feeding people you will usually need to serve them with cutlery and napkins and things like that. But this is easy, don't buy things like straws, paper plates, plastic cutlery and napkins; just use the things you've got! If you don't have enough, once again ask a friend to bring some things over.🍽

The Paper Cup Recovery and Recycling Group (PCRRG) say that nearly three billion plastic cups are used in the UK each year, and only one in 25 will be recycled. Although recycling is getting better each year, still most of these cups will be going into landfill - enough to stretch around the would 5 and a half times, say campaigners. I don't know about you, but that sounds serious. However, you have to check with your local authorities about recycling, because you may not be able to recycle these cups. So, if you can't recycle them, don't buy them.

Thanks for taking your time to read this, and remember these tips I told you for throwing an Eco friendly party, they can be used for any type of party!! Hope you had a merry Christmas and are going to have a happy new year!!😁

Violet
         xxx

Christmas Dinners! 🍽

I was reading The Week Junior (which I recommend) a few days ago and saw something about a 'Christmas Tinner' which, as I read, told me had 'nine layers of food squished in a tin - including turkey, gravy, two mince pies, cranberry sauce and potatoes.' Now these tins are sold for gamers who are too lazy or 'into their game' to even get up and enjoy a meal with their family! While I read this, I actually couldn't believe it, it was making me just so... annoyed and angry🤦‍♀️. Please, please just get up and enjoy a nice home cooked meal with your family on Christmas day!

Now, I just had to say that. Carrying on.....

I'm going to talk about microwavable meals, ready meals, processed food. I don't think anyone I know eats these on Christmas day but I know some who just eat them in general. Setting aside the fact they are unhealthy, these meals you buy in shops have a load of waste coming with them.

If you look it up, you will see that actually most ready meal plastic goes to landfill because it is in black packaging! What I mean, is that the machines that sort the recycling and the landfill things cannot detect the black packaging on the black conveyor belt and sorts it into landfill. However, to change this, machines in the UK will test a new black pigment that should spot black plastic trays ✔. But I'm not saying that doing this means that you can still buy ready meals, just recycle them after. Still try and cut down on those a tiny bit. 🙂

Thanks for reading, and come back next week for a (hopefully) New Year's themed one! Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

Violet
          xxx

Is your presence better than presents?🤔

What sort of things do you ask for for Christmas? Toys, books, clothes, electronics? Or maybe other things like: pens, bags, hand cream, gloves? We all have that one thing that we want so much that year and always goes to the top of your list. For example; there's this book I really want, and it was the first thing I wrote when I started my list.

The next question is: are you a climate activist/eco warrior? And have you ever thought how Christmas and climate change could... connect? Think about it. Millions of presents bought every year for Christmas, maybe covered in plastic or bought with a plastic bag. And then either loved, liked, or tossed away without a thought. Unless those presents were eco-friendly, imagine the plastic that wasn't used or recycled. 

Do you ask for many presents each year? What's your average amount, six, nine, twelve...? If you were trying to be environmentally friendly, would that change lower or higher? Or would it stay the same? If you haven't got the point already, what I'm trying to say is that we need to lower how many presents we're asking for. (Just saying, if you have already got not that many presents on your list then your fine🙃) . 

A way you can keep your presents to a minimum is to:

1. You could put all the presents you'd want onto a list and order them from most-wanted to least-wanted. Then take off the ones at the bottom (the ones you don't really want) and you have less on your list already! Then people will know what things you most want and will buy less things that you're really happy to get instead of more things that you don't really want.
2. You may have heard of this idea already, but another way is to use the 'want, need, wear, read.' method. Now, you may be thinking, 'but that doesn't shorten the amount of presents on your list!' and it doesn't really, but it does if you make sure you have a maximum of, maybe, two in each box. I used this last year and this year and it helped a lot!👍

Thank you for reading this post (I hope I didn't put you off by all the questions at the start!!) and see you next Sunday then!

Violet
    xxx

What do I do about cards?✉

Have you ever seen cards in a shop? Well, I know I have. But, have you ever seen cards that haven't got a plastic wrapping? I definitely have. When I used to go to Paperchase in London I would always see these brownish cards that were Eco-friendly. I would get so happy seeing them there, thinking there was a chance someone might buy them. They also had very cute and nice things on the front which made them very appealing to get.

However, as much as I would like to get rid of those little plastic wallets that surround most cards, I know they have a reason for them:

Why shops use plastic wrapping:

• So the cards don't get damaged during shipping
• If someone with dirty fingers touches it, the card doesn't get dirty or wet
• It insures you can take it home in perfect condition

But...why you should avoid plastic wrapping if you can:

• It is bad for the environment (obviously)
• You can't recycle them so they go to landfill
• Like the one before, you can't use them to create things like crafts out of them like you can with wrapping paper

This is why I'm struggling to think whether the plastic sleeves are good things or not.

However, there is a solution to not getting into all this, and that is to make your own cards! I love designing the front of cards and all you have to do is: get a piece of paper/card; fold it in half equally (or cut it to make it smaller); get out some colourful pens or pencils; start drawing and writing!! If you feel like you need an envelope to go with it, but you have none that fit or are lying around your house, you could make one! (You could even make it to reuse that wrapping paper that you have😉) Here is a step by step image to show you:👆

You may be asking now: what do I do with cards I've received that can't be recycled? Well, you could either:

1. Cut the left side off (the one with the front on it) if there is no writing on it. Then, write a message on it to someone and use it like a large postcard!
2. Cut out one of the pictures or writing on it and hole punch the end, then write someones name on it and use it as a name tag on a present!

Thank you for giving your time to read this and hope to see you next week for another Eco tip!

Violet
           xxx