Hey team. Apologies for the lack of a post on Friday – I was ill with my second cold of 2011 (which, given it was only the 7th of Jan, I thought was pretty good/bad going. I’m in the constant coughing stage now, such fun.) I spent the whole day in bed wishing I could get a sinus transplant – only momentarily distracted by the new DEFRA 2009-2010 recycling stats by area report – numbers are the best medicine ;)

Those who know that Strepsils are a vaguely medicinal lozenge for sore throats will probably be able to see that the inspiration for this post came from my sick bed.

For years, they’ve been sold in blister packs but now you can get them in plastic “handy tubes” too. I would imagine that the tubes use more packaging per tablet than the blister packs but they seem considerably easier to reuse, and reuse often, than blister packs.

The tubes are sturdy plastic, just less than 2cm/an inch in diameter and about 10cm/5ins long. The lid pops off but re-seals securely – the new camera film canister, perhaps?

The tube I’ve got smells strongly of “honey & lemon” so I’m not sure I’d want to use it for food items in the first instance but it would be perfect in a sewing kit – somewhere to keep needles, buttons or other small fastenings, or even a whole emergency kit for carrying in a handbag. As the top’s seal feels at least water-tight, it would probably be great for taking small quantities of shampoo or conditioner (etc) when travelling.

Any other suggestions?

Since sharing my favourite upcycled Christmas present ideas and recycled Christmas decoration suggestions, I’ve spotted another few awesome things that I thought I should mention in case you’ve got a few spare hours this afternoon and want to reduce, reuse and recycle!

• I love, love, love using the metal of drinks cans for things – and this is a wonderful reuse – a very special Christmas card. (Keep the prettiest cards from this year to make them next year!)
• Eaten your fill of shop-bought mince pies already? Use the pie tins to make a table centre piece for your Christmas meal!
• Still got to wrap your offerings? Here’s a cute wrapping idea: make a shiny bow from a sweet wrapper or crisp packet.
• These super simple tree decorations made from scrap card are great – from cutting out to on the tree in less than five minutes!
• A little more involved, these sheet music tree decorations would be very fun for musical families.
• And even more personal decoration idea: use old flour to make salt dough and make animal/children paw print tree ornaments to mark the year. I love the idea that making these could be incorporated into a family Christmas tradition – each year make more to add to the collection.

For all those celebrating Christmas, have a very merry one!

For all those not celebrating Christmas tomorrow, have a fab weekend!

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)

We’ve had an email from (not my) John:

What can be done with Smint boxes? Anything?

Smint packets are sealed plastic dispensers, which according to the Smint website can’t be opened and refilled to “assure the maximum hygiene for our product”. That makes them infinitely less easy to reuse as, say, Tic Tac boxes, which can be opened and refilled easily.

Does anyone know if there is a way to open & refill Smint boxes? If you can get into them, like Tic Tac boxes, they’d be useful for storing and dispensing all sorts of small items like beads, seeds or air rifle pellets. If you can’t get into them though, I’m stuck for reuses. Anyone else got any ideas?

The best thing would probably be to avoid them in the first place – the all important “reduce”. There are lots of mints available in paper packaging – a much lower footprint.

Any other thoughts?

Wondering how to make your festive season that bit greener by making recycled Christmas decorations?

There are lots of ways to make them reusing waste paper, scrap fabric, or random other things from around the home and garden – and they’re certainly not all just for kids.

Here are some of our favourites:

• Want to have a starry, starry night? Use twigs from the garden to make window or tree decorations. (Or if your garden is as cold & icy as ours, any other sticks will suffice – perhaps the project to use up your hoarded collection of “disposable” chopstics or lolly pop sticks?)
• If you fancy something a little shinier, make stars from old foil cake or pie tins instead.
• Or if you prefer your stars in a classy matte, how about making these Christmas fairy light shades from old brown/manila envelopes?
• Brown paper shopping bags – particularly ones with a Christmas themed print on them – can be made into decorative Christmas stockings.
• Or if you’d prefer to have fabric stockings to stuff full of treats, how about recycling a pair of old jeans for a modern look?
• Smaller scraps of old clothes or fabric can be upcycled into scrap fabric wreaths – these ones made from scraps of old felted wool clothes are just lovely.
• If you’re more of a paper person, this origami Christmas wreath could be made with coloured waste paper – envelopes from Christmas cards for example.

• Or if buttons are more your thing (mmm, buttons), you could make this fab wreath instead – if you loosely sewed the buttons onto the card, you could snip them off to reuse as buttons as you needed them for actual buttoning purposes!
• If all these are a bit too grown up for you – or you’d like a project to keep the kids busy while you’re assisting Santa, how about using wine corks to make reindeer tree decorations?
• Or if you’ve still got last year’s Christmas cards, they could use them to make a cute bunting banner.
• Finally, a couple of our favourite ideas for revamping existing decorations that are getting old or tired: I love the look of these fabric wrapped Christmas items (I’ve done a similar thing before with a single colour frogged yarn – very pleasant).
• Or, turn plain baubles into fun (angry!) characters with a little paint.