There are three R’s in the title because the full eco-friendly mantra is “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. The best way to live more sustainably is not to recycle or even reuse but to reduce your consumption in the first place.

Christmas is a feast time, so a little bit of extravagance is expected (although more and more people seem to be turning to excellent initiatives, like Send a Cow, rather than piling each other down with more and more stuff). As we move into the New Year, it might be worth thinking about how you can reduce what you consume.

Less food will help lose some of that weight you have probably put on. You could also make sure you put all the new things you received to good use rather than throwing them in the back of a cupboard after a couple of days. Go further – how about re-watching the film you got last Christmas or re-reading the book you were given a couple of years before that?

Sometimes we act like spoilt children who just want to take a bite from every apple before discarding it. Maybe 2007 is a year to learn the richness of savouring things more deeply and thus reducing our burden on the planet?

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