- Use recycled holiday cards -- the equivalent of 200,000 trees and around a million Christmas cards are thrown away every year.
- Rather than throw away paper napkins, use long-lasting linen table napkins.
- If you're throwing a big party, don't buy masses of new plates and over-packaged party food. Ask each guest to bring 10 plates and a dish so all can share.
- Make sure the wine and champagne you buy has real cork stoppers, not screw caps or plastic ones. Cork stoppers are a vital way of saving the cork forests of Spain and Portugal, the last remaining habitat of the threatened Iberian lynx, the largest wild cat in Europe. The stoppers also make excellent fire lighters.
- Give an animal lover a gift to the World Wildlife Fund's Tiger Habitat campaign that will go towards planting trees in the "Tigerlands" area between India and Nepal, to help save this threatened species.
- Raid your office recycling bin for scrap white paper. Take some home and help the children cut out pretty snowflake shapes to hang in the windows.
- Use pure soya candles which are better than conventional ones made from petroleum.
- Make paper chains out of cut-out strips of magazine or old Christmas cards; use foraged fir cones and real springs of holly as décor.
- Use recycled wrapping paper; alternatively, wrap presents in plain brown wrapping paper with a festive ribbon or other reusable textiles.
- Rescue all the unwanted packaging, ribbons and wrapping paper and offer them to your local primary school art department.
Source: The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/8184516/50-tips-for-a-green-and-glorious-Christmas.html)
