Top tips for Christmas

Hello everyone,

This post is all about how to help the environment over Christmas.

1. Try not to travel massive distances by plane

Christmas is the time of the year to get the whole family together, not go on holiday. Enjoy the environment around you, talk to the friends and neighbours that you normally talk to, you don't need to fly half way aroudn the globe for just one week. Of course, if you are travelling to visit family this doesn't really count.

2. Christmas trees;

Most people buy a new Christmas tree every year and then throw it away in January. The more environmentally friendly option is to buy a small Christmas tree in a pot and put it out in the garden and let it grow for the rest of the year and then bring it in again next Christmas. There are quite a few advantages when doing this.

1. Planted trees don't drop loads of needles.

2. It saves money because you don't have to pay for a new tree every year.

3. It saves the hassle of trying to get a massive tree from the shop to your home.

The downside is that you need a garden or a plot of land where you can plant the tree from January until December.

3. Wrapping paper

When you're wrapping up gifts for friends and family, try and think about how you're wrapping them. There are several ways to be more environmentally friendly when it comes to wrapping paper.

3.1. Wrap it up in a newspaper

Advantages:

1. Saves money because you don't have to buy wrapping paper.

2. Wrapping paper is often wrapped in plastic in the shop, so using newspapers saves plastic.

3. Reuse the newspaper, and reusing stuff is always good.

3.2. Be careful of how you wrap and unwrap presents

So if you don't want to use newspaper, then you can still use wrapping paper. Here's how it works:

1. Try to choose nice wrapping paper

2. Don't use sellotape or anything that will rip the paper. Use string instead.

3. Try and wrap it with as fewer folds as possible.

4. When you're on the receiving end:

4.1. Unwrap it carefully to avoid ripping the paper

4.2. Use the wrapping paper for something else. For instance:

4.2.1. Make a bookmark out of it

4.2.2. Save it for next Christmas

4.2.3. Find another use for it that avoids chucking it away

4. No tinsel

So tinsel is be quite popular. It can also make the holiday feel even better. But what happens to tinsel after Christmas? It gets thrown away. Tinsel also drops little plastic strands that often end up inside a sea animal's stomach! So this year, try and avoid tinsel. It isn't that hard.

5. Presents

When you walk down a supermarket alley at Christmas, you see tons of presents. The majority of them are either wrapped in plastic or made of it. Trying to find a present that doesn't contain plastic can be hard. Normally the only things that don't contain plastic are books. (Not that any of us would ever say no to a book!) But if you know someone who doesn't like books, it can be hard to find them a present.

However, there's another option: homemade presents. Ok, so these take longer, but they're cheaper. Sometimes they don't cost a penny because they're made from things you've already got around the house. Also, homemade presents are lovely to receive because you know that the other person put time and effort into them.

So those were our five top tips for Christmas. If you can think of any more, write them in the comments or send us an email at contact.greenworldblog@gmail.com

In case we don't publish another post before then, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Image: This image is owned by Skylar Kang on pexels.com.

Comments

The life of ... a koala

Hello everyone, Today we're talking about koalas. Also known as koala bears, koalas are marsupials. So they're actually not bears. Koalas, phascolarctos cinereus , are tree dwelling and probably best known for spending most of the day sleeping. They live for up to 15 years in the wild although captive koalas generally live for longer. Koalas have a stout, gray body and a cream-coloured chest. They have a broad face, small yellow eyes and big fluffy ears. In adaptation to climbing, their feet are strong and clawed. Adult individuals in South Australia weigh 14kg and are 60-84cm big. Their Eastern cousins are considerably smaller. Koalas are found in Eastern and Southern Australia, where they live in eucalyptus trees. They feed on the leaves of these eucalyptus trees, eating up to 1.3kg a day. With a body weight of up to 14kg, this means they eat just under 10% of their body weight every single day. However, the le...

Photo Essay || Iceland Series (part 1)

Hi Everyone! I recently went on a school trip to Iceland! It was such an incredible experience (and I'm going to sound cheesy now) but it was also incredible to do it with some of my closest friends! I saw so many incredible things and learnt so much, so I couldn't resist sharing a little Iceland mini series of posts, all about Iceland, both my experiences there and what I saw, but also the way it uses geothermal energy, and the animals, natural landforms and plants that are there. Today I'm sharing some photos of my trip. These are all photos I have taken, and are also the highlights so please bear that in mind as you browse these! I hope it is interesting and inspires you to book a trip to Iceland! The blue lagoon <33 landscapes.... Lost little farmhouses a...

Animals 36-40 in our '50 incredible animals' series

Hi, As you probably noticed, we took a break from this series, mostly due to having just too much to do. But we're back now with the last three posts. 36. The Pinocchio frog The Pinocchio frog can be found in the Foja Mountains in Indonesia. They mainly eat insects, although little is known about them. They are named because the males have a spike on their noses. They were only discovered in 2008, and this was completely by accident! It remained unnamed scientifically until over ten years later when it was given the name " Litoria pinocchio " . There is very little information about them but Wikipedia states that "the male Pinocchio frog inflates its nose when calling, and the nose decreases in size when the frog is calm and quiet," which I think is hilarious and so interesting! 37. Snub-nosed monkey Especially noticeable due to their curious looks, the snub-nosed monkeys can be found in the forests of central China and northern...

Coral reefs

Hello! We would love to introduce you to the topic of coral reefs and especially coral reef bleaching, as it is a greatly ignored but certainly significant topic. Have fun! 5 coral reef facts 1. The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on the planet and is 2300 km long! 2. Less than 0.1% of the world's ocean surface is covered in coral reefs. 3. At least 25% of all marine animals live there. 4. Coral reefs are often known as the rainforests of the ocean. 5. In 1 square kilometre of coral reef, up to 35 tons of fish can be 'produced'. The 5 biggest coral reefs in the world 1. Great Barrier Reef (near Australia) 2. Red Sea Coral Reef (near Egypt, Israel and Djibouti) 3. New Caledonia Reef (Pacific Ocean near New Caledonia) 4. The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef (near Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras) 5. Florida Reef (Atlantic Ocean/Gulf of Mexico near Florida) What is coral? Coral is actually made up of small anim...

Greta Thunberg's Speech at the UN Climate Action Summit 2019

Hi Everyone! I thought I would share the transcript of Greta Thunberg's inspiring speech from the UN Climate Action Summit. The phrase we remember is 'How dare you!'. But what did she really want us to take away from it? She wanted us to act, so watch the video using the link below and take action because the world isn't just going to heal itself. Greta Thunberg's speech at the UN Climate Action Summit video "My message is that we'll be watching you. This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic g...

Ways to help make your household environmentally friendly

We have told you a bit about the problems that the environment is facing in previous posts but we haven’t told you how to help the environment around the house. You don’t even need a garden to make a difference! Ways to help stop global warming Tip 1: Turn the lights off when you leave a room. Tip 2: Walk or cycle on short journeys. Tip 3: Don’t have the windows open and the heaters on at the same time. Tip 4: Never leave your engine running Tip 5: If you can, buy an electric car as these produce less Co2. Ways to help stop plastic pollution Tip 1: Buy a water bottle. It seems simple but every year the UK uses an estimated 13 billion plastic bottles. Tip 2: Use a bar of soap and a bar of shampoo instead of shower gel and bottled shampoo. Some say soap can dry your skin out but if you do your research you can find plastic-free high-quality soap, perhaps at a price but it depends on where you get it from. Tip 3: Make...

Major ocean currents and how they affect global temperatures

Hi everyone, This week we're talking about ocean currents. Ocean currents are part of the ocean's circulation system and influence local and global weather patterns. They are produced by gravity, differences in water density, winds on the ocean surface and Earth's rotation on its own axis. They cause the movements and exchanges of different ocean properties such as salinity, temperature and nutrients. Ocean currents can flow at speeds of up to 4m per second however most flow at speeds between 5cm and 50cm per second. Weather patterns and ocean currents constantly influence one another. Ocean currents follow similar paths as global wind do, transferring heat from the equator to polar regions. They create and influence ecosystems worldwide, especially marine ones. However they also spread plastics and microplastics around the world far from their original source. This system of ocean currents is often referred to as a global conveyor belt. Today w...

New IPCC Report 2022

Hi everyone, You've probably heard about the new IPCC report that was released earlier this year. In this post, we wanted to talk about what it is and how it could affect us. We haven't read the whole 3000+ page document, surprisingly, but people on the internet have so we have used information from reliable sources, including the IPCC website. What is the IPCC? IPCC stands for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is governments and scientists from all over the world work together to produce reports about the effects of climate change. When did that new report come out? 4th April 2022 What does the new report say and what does it mean for us? The report states that average annual global greenhouse gas emissions were at their highest levels in human history between 2010 to 2019, but the rate of growth of emissions has since slowed. Emissions must peak by 2025 and then must fall drastically (43% by 2030) if we are to limit the d...

Sir David Attenborough - an incredible naturalist

Hi everyone and welcome back to Green World, Today we want to talk about one of the most inspiring naturalists of our time. It is, of course, David Attenborough. Today (08.05.2021) is his 95th birthday so we seemed it fitting to publish a post about him today. Over his lifetime, David has won more than 40 awards for his work and was named among the 100 greatest Britons in 2020. David first joined the BBC in 1952 as a producer for the Talks department which looked after all non-fiction broadcasts. Since then, he has worked on lots of different programs and documentaries such as The Life Series, which was first made in 1979. More recently, he has presented Blue Planet and Blue Planet II. The latter had the most views recorded for a single program in 2017. David also gave the Royal Institution's Christmas Lecture in 1973 on The Language of the Animals. David Attenborough is still presenting documentaries to this day. He now lives in Richmo...

Announcement: Factfile

This image is owned by a blog editor.

Green World

Search This Blog