Sustainable Christmas Crafts

Christmas is always my favourite season. It is a month filled with blessing, presents and food. However, have you ever considered the environmental costs that have been raised during the whole Christmas period? Data has shown that around 3 million tonnes of general waste are produced in this season, what an insane number. To pursue a green Christmas, why not start with making some sustainable Christmas crafts.

The Leeds University Union has run the sustainable Christmas hand craft session in the last week of the semester. We made several crafts such as xmas crackers and various xmas tree decorations with all eco-friendly materials. For example, recyclable straws were the main material of the snowflake ornament. By simply placing straws, that have been chopped into small pieces, on to the cylinder cardboard with 8 gaps for three layers (the first layer begin with crossing each straw with two gaps in between, second layer leave with 1 gap and the last layer was built with straw across the opposite gap) they were tied with string and the snowflake was created.

Recycled buttons, dried orange slices and pinecones were the ingredients we used for making up a lovely traditional Christmas cracker in the session. They were all straightforward to make and are of course more sustainable for our environment. We can all simply apply these techniques into our daily life and adjust Christmas into a more sustainable season!

By the end of this blog, I just want to kindly remind students who will be celebrating the holidays in Leeds that there are a wide range of events running, ranging from film and games night to volunteering opportunities and trips. For more information visit the Out of term webpage and join the Christmas in Leeds 2019 facebook group.

I wish everyone has a good holiday and Merry Christmas.