Monmouthshire County Council has issued advice for a green Christmas and New Year as it wishes the community a wonderful time over the festive period.

Christmas is the traditional time for indulgence. Tables and bellies groan with food, trees are laden with decorations, and we welcome friends and family to enjoy the season of giving and receiving.

Unfortunately though, Christmas can also be a bonanza time for our overflowing bins and we seem to forget the environment beyond the warm glow of our homes. It doesn’t have to be this way! We can still enjoy Christmas without leaving a giant footprint on the planet. Here are a few interesting facts and tips to follow:

Food

Make a shopping list so that you don’t buy more food than necessary, and move things that need to be used first to the front of the fridge

Freeze food approaching its use by date if you’re not likely to eat it in time

Eggs can be frozen without their shells in cake-baking quantities, and cheese freezes well

Plan meals ahead so that you don’t have lots of extra food to store, and don’t give in to Buy One Get One Free offers unless you’re sure you can use them!

Freeze Christmas leftovers if you can’t eat them straightaway

Use your food recycling caddy and box provided by the council – it will mean less going to landfill.

Did You Know?

In Wales we gobble up an amazing 800,000 turkeys for Christmas dinners. Over a year we throw away 160,000 turkeys in Wales (source: Recycling for Wales). Every year UK consumers throw away an estimated 74 million mince pies and 5 million Christmas puddings.

Christmas trees, gifts, cards, and packaging

Choose gifts with minimal or no packaging; look for items that will have a long life and can be repaired. Avoid packaging that cannot be recycled locally – for example, shiny or foil wrapping paper can’t be recycled

Put out flattened large cardboard boxes alongside your red recycling bag

The council can take any real Christmas tree for recycling if less than 6ft tall; put it out with food boxes and garden waste - you don’t need to cut it up. If your Christmas tree is larger, you can take it to any of the council’s household waste recycling centres

Save Christmas wrapping paper to be re-used next year, and recycle special Christmas cards and ribbon into gift tags for next year

Save your stamps which are collected by various charities including the RSPB which converted donated stamps into £13,000 cash to save the threatened albatross in the South Atlantic and Antarctic Ocean last year; send them to: PO Box 6198, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire LU7 9XT.

Did you know?

The Royal Mail will deliver 150 million Christmas cards every day over the festive season in the UK. One billion of the total will end up in landfill – they could have been recycled! We throw away an estimated 4,500 tonnes of foil over the Christmas period, enough to cover the southern third of Wales. 50,000 trees will be cut down to create the 8,000 tonnes of wrapping paper used to wrap our Christmas gifts.

Monmouthshire County Council’s cabinet member with responsibility for recycling, Councillor Bryan Jones said: “Taking small steps individually as we enjoy ourselves over the festive season can do much to reduce Monmouthshire’s collective carbon footprint. Our residents and local businesses already do a fabulous job with an impressive 65% recycling rate and as I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year I hope we can look forward to sending even less to landfill in 2016.”