With the festive season fast approaching my focus has turned to a Greener Christmas.  How can I make more sustainable choices in my celebrations, decorations and gift buying? I am an advocate for shopping and supporting local businesses all year round and this time of year is no different. 

In research I came across based on the American shopping experience it showed that “for every $100 you spend at locally owned businesses, $68 will stay in the community.

What happens when you spend that same $100 at a national chain? Only $43 stays in the community” (What Happens When You Shop Local - Independent We Stand | Independent We Stand).  

In some cases, it’s not possible to buy everything locally but I encourage those who are choosing more sustainable gifts this year to make a list of whom they are buying for and select:

• Locally or nationally produced items
• Gifts made with less or no plastic material 
• Less packaging or choose reusable packaging, e.g., brown paper and twine, decora...

Striving for environmental sustainability in our shopping habits is no easy feat.

I find myself having to make tricky decisions every day of the week.

One of the first problems I encounter personally, is the issue of TIME, or lack of time to be precise.

I am blessed to live in an area where I have access to fresh locally grown produce. However, in order for me to access this delicious food, takes planning and organisation because I need to visit several different venues, every single week.

I always try to purchase my meat from our local butcher, who keeps their herd in Kilkee, Co. Clare, just down the road from me.

I also want to get my vegetables and fruit at the farmer’s market, but this is only available on Saturday mornings.

My cleaning products and the few bathroom amenities I use, have to be purchased from the health food shop as I know the brands that contain no chemicals and keep my wastewater and skin healthy. 

On the rare occasion that I do eat pork, it has to be fr...

This is difficult to determine, because there is more than one issue at stake.

In terms of Co2 emission at the production stage, Tetra Pak cartons are the winner, followed by plastic, then aluminium, and surprisingly then glass is the worst.

Glass is the highest producer of carbon emissions because of what energy is required to produce it BUT if you are reusing the glass bottles, their shelf life is much greater than the other materials, and so it could be considered a more sustainable product.

In terms of  plastic pollution and the ability to do closed loop recycling, glass and aluminium are the winners. And as you recycle them more times, their carbon emissions start to fall back down towards cartons and plastic. As per Ethical Consumer, it depends on how the item is going to be used and then disposed of.

Some are better in terms of their carbon emissions and others tie into the closed loop of reuse/recycling and affecting waste output.

Glass and Aluminium 

• They can be recycl...