Some figures that motivate Fair Christmas Fayre

Check these out:

More than 8,000 tons of wrapping paper is used at Christmas, which the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimates is enough to wrap the whole island of Guernsey.

We consume far more bottles, cans and paper at Christmas than any other time of year, with more than 3 million extra tons of waste. Our bins overflow with an extra 750 million bottles and 500 million drink cans.

About 80,000 tons of old clothes also get thrown out every Christmas.

Each year, Christmas leaves more than £1.2 billion-worth of unwanted presents in its wake.

Reported in The Independent, 12 December 2006.

If there is inevitably going to be so many unwanted presents then we should make sure our presents count for something other than the gratitude of the recipient! At Fair Christmas Fayre we will be offering a crowd of gifts that have a “restorative story”- somewhere along the line this present has helped someone in their struggle against poverty or captivity.

However we also need to be about reducing the amount of gifts we buy in the first place which is why at Fair Christmas Fayre we will be promoting home made signs of love- rather than store bought. Ideally these pressies will involve the recycling of some of the tonnes of rubbish we send to the landfill too. Any ideas?