Author: tamsinbarton

With only a month to go until the big day, many of us are thinking about seasonal shopping, whether that’s finding a sparkly jumper for the Christmas party, or buying presents for friends and family. If you’re keen to make your Christmas a bit more sustainable, here are some ideas for all the fun with less environmental impact.

First the bad news…

It’s not just our bank balances and waistbands that can feel the effects of the Christmas season; all that consumption also damages the environment. It creates mountains of waste; in the UK that includes around 365,000 kilometres of unrecyclable wrapping paper (enough to wrap around the equator nine times), 100,000 tonnes of plastic packaging, and 54 million plates of wasted food. And then there’s the impact of the stuff we buy; fast fashion (you can read our article about that here!), toys, novelty gifts, many made with plastic derived from fossil fuels, usually manufactured in China, and transported across the world. According to a coalition of ‘high ambition’ nations trying to reduce plastic pollution, the world will be unable to cope with the volume of plastic waste within a decade, and while it is important to increase recycling and waste management, these will be insufficient without a significant reduction in the manufacture and use of plastic. And if that isn’t enough of an incentive, plastics are widely recognised as a threat to health (human and others), biodiversity, and climate.

Packaging is a significant contributor to the tide of plastic and other waste. While buying online is quick and easy, all those packages have many downsides: vast amounts of resources are used not only to make the goods but also to pack and ship them: 3 billion trees are pulped every year to produce shipping cartons; transport and return of goods is responsible for 37% of global greenhouse gas emissions; and that impact increases if shoppers opt for fast delivery. And even once they reach their intended recipient, many items will be thrown away unused; around £42 million worth of unwanted Christmas presents are sent to landfill every year. If you want to check out more of the facts and figures there is a very comprehensive article here.

Enjoying new traditions

Deck the halls

• Artificial Christmas trees need to be used for at least 12 years to exceed the carbon footprint of a real tree that ends up as wood chips or on a bonfire, or sent to landfill. You can reduce the carbon footprint of a real tree even further by buying one in a pot that you can keep in the garden, or even hire one for the festive season. Many councils (including Oxford) will collect Christmas trees in January.
• Instead of plastic tinsel, look for decorations made of more sustainable material, or make your own:
  • Foliage can look lovely draped on mantelpieces or bannisters, and can be used to make your own wreath.
  • Use old paper (or maybe leftover scraps of wrapping paper!) to make paper chains
  • Add some lovely Christmassy scent to your home with orange slice decorations
  • Make some beautiful paper doves, or try one of the other papercrafts
  • Use our pompom maker to make some festive woollen decorations!
  • Treat your garden birds to a festive seedcake

Gifts

• Shop local: there are lots of independent shops in Oxford, selling everything from clothing and gifts to books and toys. If you’re free on Sunday 1 December, why not pop along to the Green Fair at the Oxford Town Hall, where you can shop for ethically sourced and local gifts.
• If you’re buying tech like smartphones or laptops, consider refurbished rather than new; they are usually cheaper, and will come with a guarantee, sometimes extras like virus protection and if you buy from one of our many local stores, the benefit of being able to pop in if you need help with it.
• Get crafty and make you own presents: if you’re looking for inspiration we have a flower press, sewing machines, a pyrography kit, and lots and lots of tools; we also have a food dehydrator, jam and sugar thermometers, chocolate moulds large pans if you are getting creative in the kitchen!
• Buy recyclable wrapping paper (make sure it doesn’t have any glitter, and is made of paper rather than plastic – can you scrunch it up?), and use paper tape rather than plastic. Or make your own wrapping; you could even borrow one of our sewing machines and make reusable fabric wrappers! Or re-use gift bags you have received.

Food/entertaining

• Buy locally grown food; you’ll be supporting local farmers and other producers, and reducing the carbon footprint of your meals.
• Reduce food waste by planning your meals over the festive season, only buying and cooking what you need, and reusing or freezing leftovers.
• If you’re cooking something you don’t normally have, or for more people than usual, borrow rather than buy kitchen equipment like our fish kettle, large cooking pot, or large colander.
• If you’re having a party, why not borrow some of our party kit? We have a chocolate fountain, a chocolate drinks maker, candy floss makers, bubble machine, a disco light, even a glitter ball. And if you’re looking for something new and sparkly, or a festive jumper, why not try and find one secondhand? Sequins, glitter and synthetic fabrics are terrible for the environment, and you can pick up a unique outfit at a bargain price on sites like ebay, Vinted or thrift.plus.

We’d love to share your ideas too. Are you trying something new this year? Discovered a new store that could become a favourite? Been crafting and created something amazing? Or having a giggle if things didn’t quite turn out as expected? (Ben’s trying making more home-cooked gifts this year and is sure his family will love the jars of “cranberry gel” which didn’t quite set but still taste great!). If you want to share stories or pictures, drop us a line at hello@shareoxford.org

Autumn has arrived (and here’s a lovely article from the BBC on when the season actually starts, meteorologically and astronomically!), so it’s time to embrace the wonderful bounty of seasonal food.

Here in the UK we are blessed with an abundance of seasonal fruit: apples, blackberries, damsons, plums, many available locally. If you’re lucky enough to have access to fruit trees, the Library of Things has some useful bits of kit to help you harvest your crop, including a long-handled fruit picker, and ladders to get to the hard to reach fruit at the top of the tree. If you’ve collected more than you can carry, we also have various buckets, wheelbarrows and festival wagons to transport your haul.

Help with harvesting

If you have more fruit than you can manage, there are several groups across Oxford that can help:

• Abundance Oxford harvest surplus fruit and redistribute it to local communities.
• The Oxford Food Hub collect and distribute all kinds of surplus food.
• Cherwell Collective runs the Harvest@Home initiative, which is helping to support those growing food in the local community. They also coordinate the Waste Innovation Station Hubs.
• You can find other local community action groups here, and if you’d like to find out more about other projects working to make healthy and sustainable food available to everyone in Oxfordshire, check out Good Food Oxford Oxfordshire.

Oxford City Farm were due to hold their Autumn Festival FUNdraiser on 5 October, but unfortunately they have been significantly impacted by the recent floods and have had to cancel the event. They are now crowdfunding to try and provide resilience to future extreme weather, and build back the loss of income both from the loss of the produce and their main fundraising event.

Autumn is also the best time of year to find fruit for free. Blackberries and elderberries have mostly finished for this year, but can be found along many footpaths in the city and beyond.

The Woodland Trust provides some useful advice about foraging safely and legally, as does the Oxford foraging and wild food map. 

Enjoying the fruits of your labours

Everyone has favourite autumn fruit recipes (personally I don’t think you can beat a traditional crumble!); for more ideas check out BBC Good Food for autumn dessert recipes. If you’re feeling adventurous the Woodland Trust has some ideas for things to make with elderberries and blackberries.

Don’t have the right kit? We can help! Borrow a large saucepan and thermometer for making jam, or our dehydrator to make healthy snacks and preserve your fruit for later use. We have two juicers, and two apple presses, one small for use at home, the other for larger groups. You can also borrow equipment from the other Libraries of Things in the county.

Preparing the garden for winter

Autumn is also a busy time for gardeners, and the National Trust has some great tips for things to do. You can borrow lots of gardening tools from the Library of Things. Oxford also has some great community gardens, including Barracks Lane Community Garden, Flo’s in Florence Park, Oxgrow near Abingdon Road, and  the Children’s Allotment in Cricket Road. Check out the community action groups website to find one near you!

Sustainable Fashion Week started in Bristol in 2021, to highlight the environmental impact of the industry during London Fashion Week. Since then it has tripled in size, with events now happening across the UK and around the world. This year, Sustainable Fashion Week will take place from 20-29 September.

The Oxford hub is led by Cherwell Collective, who are coordinating a number of events, including the following (find out more and book here):

• An exhibition at Blenheim Palace looking at the Carbon Cost of Fashion (Mon 23-Sat 28 September, 10am – 5pm)
• A runway event showcasing local designers and artists diverting materials from landfill (Tuesday 24 September, 7.30pm – 10pm, Blenheim Palace)
• Clothes swap in collaboration with Tap Social Movement: bring old clothes and swap for new ones, or just come along and buy! (Saturday 28 September, 1pm – 4pm, Botley Taproom, 27 Curtis Industrial Estate, Oxford, OX2 0LX)

As part of the celebrations, we’re running a workshop on fixing holes in your autumn wardrobe (Sunday 29 September, 2pm-4pm, 1 Aristotle Lane, Oxford, OX2 6TP). Email Caroline at repaircafe@shareoxford.org if you’d like to get involved!

What is sustainable fashion, and why does it matter?

We are all buying more clothes: according to the UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion, the average consumer now buys 60% more clothing than they did 15 years ago. And the UK is a big part of that: in 2023, we spent the fourth largest amount on clothing and footwear in the world after the US, China and India, and we are the third largest exporter of used clothing in the world, dumping tonnes of waste on countries like Ghana, UAE and Poland.

• The fashion industry now produces 100 billion garments a year;
• 87% of clothes end up in landfill, despite over 90% being reusable or recyclable;
• The global fashion industry is responsible for more than 2.1 billion tonnes of CO2 every year – more than aviation and shipping combined;
• It is the third most polluting industry after food and construction;
• An average of 80% of ‘fast fashion’ is made of synthetic materials such as polyester, derived from non-renewable crude oil, which do not biodegrade and contribute to the build-up of microplastics in oceans, sea life, and us!
• Every year over 200 million trees are destroyed to be made into textiles for the clothing industry.

Ideas to try at home

Beyond joining in at the events this month, there are lots of new ideas as well as trusted approaches to reduce impact of the clothes we wear. Here are some ideas to try.

Less is more

As anyone who watches programmes like Sort Your Life Out on the BBC will know, clothes are a big part of the clutter that is taking over our homes. Buying less means less clutter, making it easier to keep everything tidy, and enjoy the clothes we have.

It is also possible to rent clothes rather than buy them; Money Saving Expert has put together a guide to some of the best places to hire clothes at a fraction of their sale price.

See how far secondhand has come

The secondhand clothing market has come a long way from jumble sales. Local charity shops are great places to find bargains, while online retailers such as thrift.plus, Vinted, Depop, and of course eBay offer a wider choice of pre-loved clothes. And you can also donate or sell your old clothes, keeping them out of landfill and in circulation. Or head to the Charity Super.Mkt in the Westgate in Oxford to buy or donate clothes.

It’s also worth keeping an eye out for any local clothing swaps near you, like the one being run by the Cherwell Collective on 28 September. Or organise your own with friends!

So you can experience that feeling of finding your next favourite top without the environmental downsides of new clothes, and give someone else the opportunity to fall in love with the dress that you don’t wear anymore.

Show your clothes some love

The impact of fashion on the environment doesn’t stop once the clothing has been bought; how we look after our clothes is also important:

Are we all eating plastic?

Every time we wash clothes made of manmade fibres like polyester, nylon and acrylic – all used extensively in fast fashion – they shed microfibres that end up in our water systems. Half a million tonnes of plastic microfibres are released into oceans every year, and are now found all over the natural world. This is having a devastating impact on marine life, and could also be damaging our health. It isn’t an easy problem to solve, but there are things we can do (tips from Friends of the Earth):

• Buy clothes made of natural rather than manmade fibres
• Wash clothes less frequently (try spot cleaning!) and at lower temperatures, reduce spin speeds (which will also help them last longer), and fill washing machines to their recommended maximum to minimise friction between garments
• Use a Guppyfriend Washing Bag to catch fibres during washing and prevent them entering the water supply
• Air dry rather than tumble dry so clothes shed less plastic
• Keep clothes for longer, or buy secondhand – clothes shed more plastic in the first few washes, so buying fewer new clothes will mean less impact.

In a lather

The environmental impact of our clothes continues every time we wash them. Not only do many detergents contain harmful chemicals that damage the environment (for example phosphorus that contributes to the growth of algae, and so-called ‘forever chemicals’), most are also sold in plastic bottles that are made of non-renewable materials, do not decompose, and end up in landfill or polluting waterways.

If you want to reduce the environmental impact of your laundry, there are a few options in and around Oxford where you can get refills of laundry detergent, as well as many other products, most of which offer delivery:

• Oxunboxed are based in the Covered Market;
• Tribe Zero Waste have a shop in Faringdon where you can get refills, or use their Oxfordshire delivery service;
• Flo’s Refill Shop at The Place in the Park, in Rymers Lane, Oxford;
• The Village Refill at Yarnton Home and Garden, or with zero-emission delivery via Velocity (who also deliver for us)!
• Wild Honey have stores in Summertown (South Parade), Little Clarendon Street and Magdalen Road

Make do and mend

For many of us, clothing repair skills may be limited to sewing on a button, but you don’t need to be a contender for the Great British Sewing Bee to learn a few techniques that can extend the life of your favourite clothes.

Not sure where to start? Share Oxford is running a workshop at their repair café on Sunday 29 September at Makespace in Aristotle Lane focusing on fixing jeans and jumpers ready for the autumn. You can read about the environmental impact of denim here.

If the repairs are too tricky, or you don’t have time to do them yourself, there are several tailoring services in Oxford who can bring your clothes back to life, including Bespoke Tailoring, Stitch Tailoring, Trinity Clothing Alterations, Oxford Tailoring in St Ebbe’s Street, Oxford, and Jo Lyn Originals.

Banner artwork by Emotional Waterfall Art for Sustainable Fashion Week