It’s almost time to take your Christmas jumpers out. The streets are already filling with festive lights, warm scents of cinnamon and chestnuts, and families gathering to take pictures with their local Santa.

Pretty soon, bins will overflow with plastic packaging and colourful wrappers at every street corner. Plastic confetti from Christmas parties will cover the streets in your neighbourhood. Landfills will fill up with packaging waste, broken lights and unwanted plastic decorations. It is the most wasteful time of the year, after all.

Each year, the Christmas season leads to a 30% increase in plastic waste. In the UK alone, a whopping 115,000 tonnes of plastic packaging are sent to landfills during the holiday period. Most of it will eventually end up in people’s backyards in countries like Pakistan, Indonesia or Malaysia.

Don’t let your Christmas festivities be a burden on our planet and on other people’s lives. By making small, conscious decisions, we can all have a big impact. Avoiding plastic packaging and waste is actually easier than you might think!

1/ Plastic-free Christmas gifts wrapping paper

With the 227,000 miles of wrapping paper we use at Christmas, you could wrap around the Earth eight times. While you wonder how long it would take to unwrap it, just think of all that plastic waste we’ve generated.

We call it wrapping paper when in reality it is often made of plastic. Is your roll laminated, glittery, or transparent? That’s made of plastic. And like most plastic items, they won’t be recycled. Instead, all of that plastic wrapping paper will end up polluting the environment for generations to come.

It only takes 2 to 6 weeks for pure wrapping paper to decompose in the environment. Not to mention that it can be recycled again and again.

Opt for recycled wrapping paper, or, when possible, do a simple check before you buy: scrunch up the paper into a ball and, if it stays scrunched, it can probably be recycled.

2/ Christmas jumpers

Almost everyone participates at least once in their life in an ugly Christmas jumper competition. If your time hasn’t come yet, trust that it will. It’s simply one of the most popular Christmassy things to do. But did you know that most of those Christmas jumpers are made of plastic material? Polyester, nylon or acrylic are amongst the most common type of clothing materials in the World, and they’re fossil-fuel-based plastic.

Christmas jumpers often have that extra plasticy touch that makes them so… interesting, not to say ugly. Think about glitters, sequins, and anything extra that makes your jumper ‘pop’ out in a contest. Is it really worth polluting the environment? Probably not.

3/ Plastic-free Christmas crackers and decorations

Christmas crackers are a beloved British tradition at Christmas. They’re fun to pop open, and they bring a touch of entertainment to the table. And, you’ve guessed it right, they’re often made with plastics. Just like wrapping paper.

They are, however, also largely available in 100% paper, eco-friendlier options. Ditch the glitter and plastic knots, and opt for colourful paper instead.

Decorations in general, be it for the Christmas table or the tree, are often made with plastics. That makes them cheap to buy, but also easy to break. Who hasn’t seen a cat who enjoyed playing with the lowest-hanging Christmas bubbles on the tree? A child that accidentally dropped them while decorating? Wooden decorations and those made of cardboard won’t break if you drop them or if your cat uses them to play hockey. Plus, they add a beautiful natural touch to your decorations, which makes them much more Christmassy.