Sustainable Christmas

Christmas is often a time of excess and waste. By making our Christmas activities as sustainable as possible, we’re taking the lead on making it a time of wholesomeness and kindness, instead.

At Middleport Matters, we understand the need to care for the natural world and do our bit to protect it. With this in mind, we’ve made plans to keep our environmental impact as low as possible this Christmas, while still having lots of fun and sharing the cheer!

We’ll be using the same tree and decorations we’ve had for several years. No pollution from new ones being made, and money we might have spent there can be used to provide activities for our community. We tend not to go overboard on lights, and we’ve made our spaces festive and cosy with mostly non-powered items. Those lights we do have will be kept off when there’s nobody around to enjoy them.

We have a variety of craft and creative sessions planned, including willow weaving and bottle kiln tealight covers. By focusing on natural materials, we’re not adding to the mountains of plastic waste that Christmas often produces. This is continuing from our efforts at the Pumpkin Party, where we had crafts and decorations made with slices of logs from an unsafe tree that had to be taken down in St Paul’s churchyard. Where we do use other materials, they’ll all be from old stock and donations. Using things that are already in our cupboards is much kinder on the planet than having new ones shipped to us.

We’ll be offering tasty treats at some of our Christmas sessions. These are sometimes donated from supermarkets or individuals, so we’ll use what we’re given to make sure there’s nothing wasted. Where we buy things, we’ll be thinking about the packaging and trying to avoid too much plastic wherever possible.

Follow our lead and have your own wholesome, old-fashioned and sustainable Christmas!