'Christmas is rubbish' - claims South West & Gibraltar MEP

12.13.36pm GMT Mon 18th Dec 2006

You don't have to be a Scrooge to ease the load of bin men this year, says a local Euro-MP.

The mountain of wrapping paper, Christmas cards and packaging thrown away each year all adds to the 3million tonnes of waste generated over the festive season. Most of this will end up in being dumped in landfill sites.

MEPs have voted in favour of tougher new measures to reduce the amount of waste produced by households across Europe.

The new law will cut the amount of packaging that goods such as food and toys are wrapped in. But it will not come into force until 2008, and until then South West and Gibraltar MEP Graham Watson is asking local households to make small changes in minimising the amount of rubbish we throw away.

The Liberal Democrat MEP has joined forces with environmental charity Friends of the Earth to give inspiration for green ideas that won't cost the earth.

Some suggestions on how to reduce waste this Christmas:

• Treat people to a special experience instead of an item - such as theatre tokens, annual membership of a gallery or a weekend at a spa.

• Remember to take your own reusable shopping bags with you when you do your Christmas shopping. Around 125,000 tonnes of plastic are thrown away over Christmas.

• If you buy a real tree, and more than 6 million Britons do, check with your local council if they will recycle it. Many local councils grind the tree into wood chips and use them to mulch gardens and parks instead of dumping the trees in landfill.

• Buy loose rather than pre-packed vegetables as this will help cut down on packaging.

• If you are having a party avoid serving food and drink on disposable plates and cups as they will add to the growing mountain of waste. Many wine shops lend boxes of glass or you could borrow crockery from your neighbours.

• Instead of throwing away all those sprout peelings, why not put your vegetable leftovers in a compost bin. Around 4,000 million sprouts are bought in the week before Christmas so there's a lot of composting just waiting to happen!

For more information from Friends of the Earth on how to be green this Christmas see:

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/faqs/questions/green_christmas.html