1 - MWT membership!
By becoming a MWT member you add your voice to ours. This helps us challenge plastic issues, and also carry out research into things like the extent of nurdles on our beaches and also undertake litter surveys. We do gift memberships too!
2 - Paper chains
Creating your own decorations, like paper chains, are a great way of adding colour into your decorating, without the use of plastics.
3 - Canapés
Christmas is a time to enjoy getting together with family and friends, however a lot of the food we can buy, especially canapés, come with so much plastic packaging used to protect them. This year why not try making some of your Christmas canapés, vastly reducing the amount of plastic used.
You can get great ideas from recipe websites like BBC Good Food - https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/christmas-canape-recipes
4 - Wooden toys
This year why not consider buying a wooden toy instead of a plastic one for younger family members? Our Peel gift shop stocks a great range of Lanka Kade wooden toys that are plastic free, and are fair-trade too!
5 - Pinecone decorations
Pinecones are all around within the woodlands and plantations at this time of year. Why not go for a crisp walk to collect them and then warm up at home whilst decorating your finds.
You can have them as they are, for a woodland theme, or dress them up to look like Christmas trees!
Or you can get extra creative and make them into little owls using wool felt!
6 - Festive Wreaths
Wreaths you can buy can come with internal plastic structures and plastic decorations. If you create your own you can cut out all of this plastic! Using twigs or willow to create your ring, you can then use anything you can find in your garden or outdoors to add greenery to your wreath. You can also add pinecones stuffed with birdseed to feed the birds!
7 - Paper Christmas decorations
Using origami techniques you can add some colour to your Christmas tree by creating some fabulous origami shapes!
8 - Christmas crackers
What could be better than being able to add your favourite chocolates into a Christmas cracker? You’ll also be reducing plastic too without the addition of the small plastic toys.
9- Wrapping Paper
Do you know how to tell the difference between wrapping paper you can recycle and the ones you can’t?
The first step is to look at your paper, if there is glitter or metallic patches the paper can’t be recycled.
If your paper passes the first step then you can try the scrunch test! If the paper scrunches and stays in a ball this paper CAN be recycled. If it springs back into its original shape it can’t be recycled.
Best of all would be to create your own wrapping paper. Using brown paper, recycled newspaper or fabrics is a great way to be environmentally friendly, and you can still make them look festive too!
10 - Ice decorations
On a cold night, ice decorations are great fun to make for outside!
11 - Christmas baking
There is nothing better at Christmas time than baking! You can make gingerbread ornaments for the tree, Christmas shortbread and mince pies! Even if you use the mince from a jar, you are still reducing plastics greatly. So have a go at baking this Christmas!
12 - January sales
People often look forward to the January sales. There are things you can do to make sure you are prepared and reduce the plastic. Make sure you have your own shopping bags with you. Think about the items you are buying, do you really eeed them, and could there be a plastic free alternative?
And lastly have you seen our January membership offer? You get 18 months for the price of 12 when you take out a MWT membership in January!