To go with the large amount of gifts and food we have also comes a massive amount of packaging. The actual products within the packaging also cause problems for the environment, particularly the making of the gifts.

Never fear though, for those that try to be as eco-friendly as possible, there is a number of things that you can do to try and make your Christmas less damaging to the environment.

Buying gifts for your various relatives is a tricky task in itself, but trying to think of eco gift ideas is even harder. To give you some ideas, here are some great fairtrade gifts.

With climate change having such a massive effect on the minds of people, retailers have started to sell even more eco-friendly and recycled products. Obviously laundry baskets or recycled tableware don’t make wonderful presents, however, there are plenty of other great eco gifts out there. For everyone, from gardeners to brandy drinkers, there are gifts such as recycled gardening tools or recycled brandy glasses that make great Christmas gifts.

As for gifts for children, you won’t find much for the older kids. However, if you have younger children, then there are some great fair trade soft toys or solar powered wooden toys that you can buy that kids would love.

There are some great shops you’ll find down your highstreet or online that sell a large range of eco-friendly products.

The last thing you can do to try and help the environment comes just before Christmas day, the gift wrapping. Although you may think you can’t do much about it, unless you just leave the presents un-wrapped. But there is. Because wrapping paper is simply paper, it’s very easy to recycle, this means that a large number of retailers have started to sell recycled wrapping paper. Also, after the big day, make sure you recycle all your wrapping paper to finish the job off.

The mix for making glass is soda ash, limestone and silica. Silica and limestone are quarry products whereas soda ash is produced in large volumes by the worldwide chemicals industry. All the gathered materials are then melted together at high temperatures to create the various glass types that we use everyday. These glass uses range from glass fibres which are used in windows and windscreens, to bottles and jars.

A huge amount of energy is used in the chain of processes leading to the production of glass items. So recycling glass which can be used to create recycled vases has to be a good thing, right?

Up to a certain point. The sad fact is that most glass used in the products and objects we buy is brand new material. The biggest reason for this is that the majority of manufacturers insist on uniformity and the only feasible way to achieve this is by creating brand new glass

The absolute best thing you can do with old glass products like bottles and jars is to clean them out and re-use them for the original purpose. In the UK, this only takes place with milk bottles which are delivered to houses. Each of these bottles are generally reused around 12 times. The reason why this form of reuse is so successful is because not only do milk bottles get dropped off, but the old ones are also collected. The reasons why other bottles are never reused (at least in the UK) include the unwillingness of major retailers to handle the returns process, the logistical cost of returning imported bottles (think New Zealand wines), and the nervousness of marketers about the integrity of their brand images.

So most bottles are ground down to make a raw material called cullet, which could then be re-melted to form part of glass production. But it isn’t. In fact, the glass that does end up being recycled ends up in aggregate mixtures which are used to make road surfaces. Practially all of the bottles that we do end up recycling and made from brand new glass. Your recycling efforts won’t change that. The reason recycled glass isn’t used to make new glass is because of it’s uncertain composition and exact specifications that are required by glass makers, this makes it impossible to recycle.

Plate glass is an even worse problem. A large amount of glass is used each year for replacing glass windows, particularly in sealed double-glazing units. Ever wondered what happens to the old units? Straight to landfill sites. It is just too difficult, in terms of time and money, to separate the glass from the other materials in the units.

It’s a tough job to find a retailer that actually sells products created from recycled glass. They should be treasured and encouraged because their producers are able to demonstrate that it can be done. So here’s a link to a UK supplier that sells many recycled glass products, including glass tableware such as plates, bowls and wine glasses, as well as colourful recycled glass bathroom accessories such as soap dispensers.

Even though these bamboo PCs won’t save the environment, they did prove how versatile bamboo really is.

Bamboo must be the only raw material that can be used as food, clothing and building materials. Even Edison used bamboo in one of his early lightbulb designs. Due to bamboo being so strong and cheap, it has become a widely used product for scaffolding in parts of Asia. The fibres of bamboo poles have high strength both in tension and compression. It’s compressive strength works out around twice that of concrete, bamboo also has the same tensile strength to weight ratio as steel. Now there’s even a bamboo laptop!

Bamboo products ticks almost all boxes for anyone looking to purchase eco-friendly home furnishings. For a start, it’s a highly sustainable raw material. Some bamboo species are able to grow more than one metre every day. Local people can cut down as much as they need for carving, weaving, sawing or splitting and still have as big a forest at the end of the year as they had at the start. As for the global warming question, because the bamboo is a plant, anything that’s been made from it contains a large proportion of atmospheric carbon. Whereas any equivalent product made from plastic actually increases the carbon level in the atmosphere!

Another point; because it’s natural, bamboo has variations in quality and appearance that make it difficult to use in most mass production processes. As a result, this means that the bamboo products you buy are most likely hand crafted by skilled craftsman. If you go to a reputable source you’ll also know that the craftsman got a fair wage for his or her work, and that no one was exploited by western buying power. Finally you’ll be sure that the product you buy hasn’t accumulated air miles in its journey from craftsman to your home.

With eco credentials as strong as these it’s amazing that bamboo products can also be very beautiful. Picture a skilfully made bamboo box, lovingly lacquered with 15 layers of natural shellac. All natural and really stylish. I myself bought a fantastic, hand-crafted bamboo knife block and am now seriously considering investing in some other bamboo kitchen accessories like fruit bowls. Stylish and ethical. Win.