I try my best to live an eco-friendly, sustainable life, and that includes a green Christmas. However, the tricky thing about Christmas is that there’s still waste, no matter how much you try to cut down. I was gifted so many vegan and so-called “eco-friendly” products, and somehow, still wound up in a mountain of single-use plastic. So, I was wondering, how to clean up after Christmas in an eco-friendly way.
My family tried to find things that correlate with my beliefs and lifestyle and in the end, got greenwashed. The environment is one of the biggest reasons people go vegan, so surely, those selling vegan companies would be the first to get sustainable packaging?
Thankfully, it doesn’t all have to go to waste. As I sadly helped my family take down our tree, I realised that we can be smart with all the waste and find ways to repurpose it. Here’s how to clean up after Christmas in an eco-friendly way.
Being Eco-Friendly After Christmas
1. Don’t Donate To A Charity Shop Yet

As “New Year, New You” diet fads sweep the retail industry this month. The Christmas stuff gets cleared out of stores, including charity shops. Which means, if you have old decorations or unwanted gifts, now is not the time to donate them.
Charity shops won’t keep out of season goods in the back and take them out next Christmas. If you donate Christmas stuff now, chances are it will go to waste. Put the unwanted Christmas items in a box in the regular attic and donate them at the start of the next festive season when you take down the decorations again.
It’s a bit inconvenient to keep it all for another year, but it’s better to do this than for it go to waste. You’re not just sparring items from the bin, but when someone else buys them, the charity benefits. Afterall, that’s what Christmas is all about!
2. Keep Wrapping Paper For Storing Decorations

You might have been eco-friendly and wrapped your presents in brown or recycled paper this year. Still, the chances of at least someone gifting you something in non-recyclable traditional wrapping paper are high.
Instead of begrudgingly letting it go to landfill, use it to wrap up your most delicate Christmas decorations as you store them away. Every year something breaks or comes down from the attic missing a piece. There’s no such thing as too much cushioning for your most sentimental and precious Christmas decorations.
If there’s big in-tact pieces you can hold onto it, and reuse it to wrap something else next year. Wrapping paper was a life saver during moves.
3. Make Gift Labels With Cards

Plain Christmas cards can be recycled, but ones with glitter, glue, and other weird additions cannot be. The same goes for envelopes which are also covered in glitter now! If you’re not keeping any cards for sentimental purposes, then sort out which can be recycled and which can’t be.
If a lot of your Christmas cards are unrecyclable, they don’t all have to go to waste. The images and greeting on the front can be cut out to DIY gift logos for next year.
Not only is this giving what was once a single-use item another go, but it’ll save you money next Christmas when you don’t have to buy gift labels!
An idea for next Christmas, if you’d rather send physical cards instead of an e-card, is to get seed-cards. These are biodegradable cards with flower seeds inside, that can be planted! The bees will appreciate it.
4. Donate To Shelters

People are great for donations before Christmas but forget about it after Christmas. January is still winter which means that homeless people still need warm food and coats. It doesn’t matter that there’s a Santa Claus on a food item, if it’s still in date it should be good to donate. Some shelters list what they need, and what they have enough of so make sure to have a look at your local website first.
If you have old winter jackets, they can also be donated to local coat sharing initiatives to help people brace the remainder of winter.
All the unwanted shower gels, moisturizers, and grooming kits can be donated if you have too many of those! Women’s shelters are happy to take these kinds of luxury items too. It’s not just about giving people the necessities, but it’s nice to enjoy comfort items too.
Homelessness is a problem all year – not just during Christmas.
5. Dispose Of Your Tree Properly

We’ve had the same reusable faux Christmas tree for as long as I can remember, and it still looks great! However, not everyone get’s a reusable tree.
If you got a real tree this Christmas, don’t just throw it out. Every year, I see Christmas trees dumped in the most random places. Although it’s a biodegradable item, it’s not going to biodegrade on the street! Local charities or forestry groups often take old Christmas trees and dispose of them responsibly.
If you have a reusable faux Christmas tree, take it down carefully and store it properly. The better care you take of it, the longer lifespan it has. Our branches go on one by one, and somehow 20 years later, we still have all of them. If you’re considering getting a faux tree, have a look for a second-hand one in good condition first!
Aside from answering how to clean up after Christmas in an eco-friendly way, I also have a guide on cleaning up after Halloween.
6. Get Crafty

What I find worse than wrapping paper is the clear plastic that coats the tiniest of products. What I was the most irritated this Christmas was the big boxes full of unrecyclable clear plastic covering tiny products. It was so unnecessary! Most of the products were in plastic packaging so didn’t even need the big wall of plastic to protect them anyway.
If you’re artistic you can find a good use for this troublesome plastic and DIY some shrink plastic! The art of shrink plastic involves drawing a design in marker on a flat piece of plastic and then shrinking it in the oven. You can make key-rings, jewellery, and more if you’re creative enough. Who knows, you might even end up setting up an Etsy store with your upcycled creations!
You can also use little bits and pieces in scrapbooks or junk journals.
I hope this answered any questions you might have about how to clean up after Christmas in an eco-friendly way? Did you encounter any green challenges this holiday season? I also have green gift guides and stocking stuffers.

Great suggestions. I feel like this is a topic that no one is really discussing, but it is so important to consider. The amount of waste making it’s way to the landfills following the holiday season is mind blowing! We may not be able to change everything, but if each of us took the time to make a small change it will add up.
I love the idea of using old wrapping paper for storing decs! Never even crossed my mind. Great post, thanks.
Stacey
http://stcyblogs.blog
I love your creative ideas and I will definitely find use of them. I am trying to go green and hopefully succeed this year. Hopefully it won’t take more. I was recently disappointed by our trash removal company. I saw them take the trash, and then dumped the recyclables right in with the trash. What’s the point of recycling if they’re not going to do their job properly?
That’s awful, it’s so counterproductive! Is there someone you can complain to about that?
These are all such great tips! Thanks so much for sharing!
Love these ideas! xx
Brilliant point about not dumping used Christmas trees on the roadside. It’s irresponsible and not very bright. I’m all for secondhand trees. Easy to trim them too. Plus, making gift labels with Christmas cards is a whole lot of fun!
Brilliant point especially on keeping decors and unwanted gifts.
I got some really nice ideas from this post. Thank you so much!
Love your ideas! All my Christmas ornaments are in old wrapping! but never thought about using the plastic packaging for shrink plastic, that extra packaging annoys me so much!
Yas! I hope more people follow these guidelines. Thank you for posting.
The handmade gift tag is such a cute idea! I think I might do that!
Our eco issue with christmas in our town… my neighborhood has recycling collection every two weeks. Our family recycles A LOT. So now i’m trying to play catch up with all these boxes and what not. They also closed all the local places you could bring stuff because of illegal dumping
These are some great suggestions to help save our planet and still be productive needed! Thank you for sharing!
Brilliant! We have a faux tree and try to do our part with the other ideas. In fact, I just collapsed all the cardboard gift boxes for recycling. Thank you for these tips.
These are all such great suggestions! My mom has always been about saving money, not necessarily the environment (though she’s gotten into that now!), so we’ve always reused Christmas bags, bows, ribbons, etc. We even set up stations when we’re opening presents: a trash can, a recycle bin, and baskets for bows, ribbons, bags, and other things we can reuse next year! Also, we know we’ve used a Christmas bag before when we’ve found old pine needles in the bottom of it, haha. We also reuse old Christmas cards like you suggested as gift tags! And that’s such a good idea about not donating your Christmas things right away. We’ve tried to do that right after holidays and shops won’t take them because they’re holiday related. Now I know to wait and try to donate our holiday related things before their holidays. So smart!
Thanks for all of these great suggestions! I love the idea of using old wrapping paper to wrap and cushion ornaments and decor. Brilliant!
Emily | https://www.thatweirdgirllife.com
Great ideas!
Thanks so much for writing this post, we get so distracted by the glitz and glamour of the holidays that we can forget many of these things!
These are some fabulous tips which are often over-looked… I try and be as eco-friendly as possible, but as you said even with the best intentions sometimes things are out of our control and single use plastic is such a nightmare.
I’m defintely going to make a note of your suggestions, thanks for sharing them!
Pixee xo | Thats What Pea Said
Great post, I never would have thought of using paper for storage, and nice and festive when opening next year too
Great tips, probably not something a lot of people think about when it’s the after Christmas rush and everyone just wants to get back to normal. We have an artificial tree which we’ll be using for years and year so don’t have to worry about disposing of a tree. Also wasn’t aware of that about charity shops! x
Amazing tips. I am also giving to charity shops and shelters and love making crafts. Thanks for sharing it.
I love this!! I always used a faux tree myself because it always made me so sad how many were just sitting on the sides of the roads in my neighborhood.
These are great tips. We’ve always had a real tree, due to pagan beliefs, and the love of the pine smell in our house. But we always cut it up and pop it in our green recycle bin at the end of the festive period. It’s used for any garden waste and is composted. We’re also thinking about purchasing our own compost bin this year. I love the idea of using non recycable gift wrap to keep Christmas decorations protected. I’d never thought of that.