WITH only 28 days until Christmas, it is worth remembering to consider the environment and to have an eco friendly festive period.

We know Christmas is a time of peace and goodwill to all but it’s also a time of tremendous waste. We’ll have lots of tips and ideas over the next few weeks about how to minimise your waste and maximise your recycling over the festive season. So as you continue your preparations for Christmas, here are a few areas you can focus on.

Advent calendars

They are great fun and the chocolate ones are very tasty but do create waste in terms of the cardboard outer box, foil cover and plastic inner. There are lots of eco friendly alternatives if you look online - a quick way to reduce your waste this festive season.

Wrapping paper

So why not make your own this year? Make it reusable and you can use it year after year eliminating any waste or repurpose every day household objects and recycle them afterwards.

In the UK every Christmas we throw away 227,000 miles of wrapping paper.

You can also use offcuts of fabric. Newspaper is another option, all the more reason to buy the Evesham Journal.

If you are not into arts and crafts and decide you are going to still use wrapping paper then please opt for paper that isn’t shiny or doesn’t have a metallic look or feel to it. This usually means it isn’t suitable for recycling.

Another way to cut down on wrapping waste is to avoid using bows and ribbons. They look pretty but will end up in the bin unless you can save them to reuse next year.

Christmas cards

As long as they don’t have glitter on them or ribbons etc then plain, standard Christmas cards can be recycled.

However, why not eliminate that waste completely by sending an electronic Christmas card this year or perhaps a video message on social media.