FANTASTIC, BUT NOT PLASTIC

Following on from environmental campaigner Natalie Fée’s feature on how to have an eco-friendly Christmas, here’s our pick of recyclable and reusable wrappings, gift tags and heirloom decorations

Our pick of recyclable and reusable wrapping, gift tags and heirloom decorations to ensure a more environmentally friendly Yuletide

Christmas is wonderful – but it can be wasteful. Every year we throw away 277,000 miles of wrapping paper alone. Traditional gift-wrap looks glamorous but it’s often coated with a plastic film and includes plastic glitter or foiling, which can’t be recycled so ends up in landfill. That’s before we even get to Christmas crackers, tissue paper crowns, gift tags and rosettes. As Sir David Attenborough said last autumn, when he joined

Instagram and gained the largest following in the shortest time ever, ‘Don’t waste’. He was asked for the single piece of advice that would make the biggest difference to safeguarding our planet, and that was it. So with this in mind, we’ve rounded up sustainable Christmas products made of 100% recycled paper, wood, cotton and linen which can be reused or recycled. Many are created by some of our best and most inventive young designers, who seek to make a difference to the way we shop.

REUSABLE WRAPPING

Stine and Nicoline, two friends from Denmark who live in the UK, are bringing Scandi eco style to our doorsteps with The Danes brand. Their reusable linen ‘Furoshiki’ gift-wrap cloth does away with paper altogether and can be washed at 40˚C. The medium 45cm sheet, £9.95, will wrap a book or a bottle, the larger 65cm sheet, at £13.95, suits larger boxes or gifts. Fasten with some candy-striped thick flax twine, £3.49 for 20m (thedanes.co.uk).