With Christmas getting closer by the day, many people will have already begun their Christmas shopping for another year. Although we enjoy the holidays due to the gifts and the large amount of good we consume, Christmas isn’t a good time for the environment.

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.