CHRISTMAS is a time when we traditionally spend more than we should but our celebrations could, literally, be costing the Earth.

In a report called The Hidden Cost of Christmas, the Australian Conservation Foundation calculated the environmental cost of spending during the festive season – and it makes alarming reading.

Before we even plug them in, the $1,500 million worth of household appliances we buy add 780,000 tonnes of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere – the equivalent of putting another 156,000 cars on the road for a year.

The $1.5 billion spent on clothes this Christmas will result in 720,000 tonnes of greenhouse pollution and 38 gigalitres of water.

But that doesn’t mean you have to feel guilty about having a good time. There are dozens of ways to make your Christmas more Earth-friendly.

“A better world is on the top of everyone’s Christmas wish list,” Conservation Council of WA’s Jessie Cochrane told ScienceNetwork WA.

“Christmas is the perfect opportunity to make a real difference to the world we live in by doing something positive for the environment.

“From seemingly small decisions such as choosing recycled wrapping paper and making your own decorations, to larger decisions such as making a donation on behalf of another to a charity or environmental organisation, you can make a huge difference in building a sustainable future.”

Here are our top tips for a green Christmas:

Gifts

Of all our Christmas choices, gift giving has the potential to be the most eco-unfriendly. A Newspoll survey of 1200 Australians found more than half the people questioned received Christmas presents they didn’t use.

Rather than buying your friends and family more “stuff”, consider giving them an experience – cinema or concert tickets, a voucher for a massage, or adopt an animal on their behalf from Perth Zoo (www.perthzoo.wa.gov.au). You’ll also save on packaging and wrapping.

Batteries contain toxic chemicals, don’t biodegrade and are difficult to recycle. Use rechargeable ones or choose a gift that doesn’t need them.

Charity TEAR Australia (www.usefulgifts.org) has created Arguably the World’s Most Useful Gift Catalogue to help those in poverty in the developing world. There are hundreds of choices – $5 will buy school supplies for a child in Ethiopia; $50 will buy a goat for a family in Bangladesh.

Cards

Do you need to send a card to everyone you know? Send e-cards, text messages, or visit friends and neighbours at Christmas. If sending out invitations to your annual party, put guests who live near each other in touch, so they car share.

Wrapping

One of the biggest sources of waste each Christmas is wrapping paper. We use about 4,000 tonnes each year – the equivalent of 25,000 trees.

Go for recycled paper, or use old calendar pages, magazines or the comic sections from newspapers. Wrap gifts in a scarf, handkerchief, or off-cut of fabric that you’ve found at a second-hand shop.

Better still, hide the presents in the house and garden and organise a treasure hunt so you can do away with wrapping altogether.

Decorations

Choose decorations that you will use year after year, go greener with Christmas decorations from your garden such as eucalyptus branches, or make edible decorations such or coloured popcorn or gingerbread shapes.

Choose LED fairy lights but, if you can’t find them, the conventional ones don’t use a lot of energy if you limit the time they are on. .Switching off an unnecessary light for just one night saves enough energy to run a stereo for 24 hours.

The tree

Real trees are a far better choice than plastic ones which require large amounts of energy to make and create harmful by-products such as lead. The average life of an artificial tree is just six years and then it goes into landfill.

A living tree is carbon neutral, a wildlife habitat and a naturally renewable resource. Go for an Australian native in a pot which you can plant in the garden after Christmas, or simply decorate a tree or plant that is already thriving in your yard.

Food

Buy fresh, in-season local foods that haven’t been trucked across the country, creating greenhouse emissions, or kept in cold storage for months.

For lunch, a barbecue is a better choice than a roast which keeps the oven burning for half the day.

And when the party’s over…

Recycle your Christmas cards. According to Planet Ark, Australians send more than 260 million cards every year, most of which end up in landfill.

Until the end of January you can pick up a reply-paid envelope from Australia Post stores and post your cards to Planet Ark for free.

The Planet Ark 4 Cards campaign, now in its 14th year, has recycled more than 550 million cards, saving more than 100,000 trees.

Let us know how you'll be making your Christmas 'greener' this year by taking part in our online poll!