Top tips for a low waste Christmas

Not sure if you need a low waste Christmas? Well, last year, Unilever figures say that over 4 million Christmas dinners are effectively thrown away every year. That’s equivalent to 263,000 turkeys, 7.5 million mince pies, or 11.3 million roast potatoes!

Here, zero-waste experts and founders of Oddbox, Emilie Vanpoperinghe and Deepak Ravindran, share their top tips for a low waste Christmas. Not only will the planet thank you, you might find that it’s kinder on the pocket too.

Christmas gifts

• Gift something that can help reduce waste all year around: water-bottles, containers, a composting course for example.
  
• Avoid wrapping paper: use textiles or a nice newspaper spread instead.
  
• Think second hand, home-made gifts or gifts that support local artisans and do not add to the carbon footprint.
  
• Gifting for a Londoner this year? Treat them to an Oddbox subscription voucher, available from 14th November, www.oddbox.co.uk

Christmas parties

• Opt for a cracker free Christmas table or eco-friendly crackers: it is estimated the UK pulls over 150 million crackers every Christmas, most of which won’t be recyclable as they usually have a metallic coating.
  
• Borrow your Christmas party outfit: if you can’t find anything in your wardrobe, we’d recommend checking a friend’s, colleague’s or something like rentmywardrobe.com.
  
• Ask for a doggy bag / take a container: there is a tremendous amount of food wasted in restaurants and pubs, so don’t be shy to ask to take any leftover roasties with you home. A collapsable container works perfectly here, as it only takes up space in your bag once they are in use.

Christmas at home

• Use Oddbox veg for your Christmas dinner: using veg that would have otherwise gone to waste is a great start to a sustainable festive season. Boxes start at £9.45 from www.oddbox.co.uk. Oddbox will also be selling a ‘Roasties’ box the week before Christmas, packed full of potatoes and veg that are perfect for roasting.
• Freeze or redistribute any leftovers: if you’re hosting ask your family to bring containers to take food with them and freeze whatever is left to use later. OLIO is a great app to connect you to redistribute food to the community - you can also use it for unwanted Christmas gifts in a non-food section.
  

The Basa fillets with sprouts, panchetta and parsnips recipe has been provided by Young’s.

For0 festive recipes, take a look here!