Advent Calendar: Day 15

VitaEurope wants to keep you company until Christmas and remind you of all the beautiful things you can do to make the last bit of 2011 useful, fun, sustainable and unforgettable.

We have prepared a special advent calendar  for you. Everyday we’ll suggest a simple action you can take which will improve your life as well as the world around you. What are you waiting for?

Give new life to your old clutter

Christmas is a time for giving and in the modern era its meaning is taken more literally than it may have been meant for. Either way it is quite inevitable that you will end up with at least one or two bagfuls of presents. The average size of the houses Europeans live in today is around 80 square metres and Christmas after Christmas those bagfuls can add up. What better chance than Christmas itself to rid yourself of some of the clutter?

Once you have sorted the junk from the non junk you are in a position to judge what best use things can be put to. The first question you should be asking yourself is: can this be recycled? To help you in this quest here are a few pointers.

1. Fobbing off unwanted gifts from previous festivities is the oldest trick in the hat but a useful one if you are behind on (or too poor for) Christmas shopping. Blow off the dust, re-wrap et voila’, you have saved yourself time and money and done your home and the environment a good turn.

2. You don’t get much more creative than Christmas. Cold winter nights are a perfect time to do some arts and crafts and old clothes, buttons, shoes and jewellery are great raw materials to start from. The best thing is if you make something really pretty you can either give it away or sell it on Etsy or Blomming. 

3. Warm jackets? Boots that don’t fit? Trousers you’ve only worn once or twice but can’t bear to throw away or cut up into rags? The answer is easy: give them to charity. There are several trustworthy international organisations like the Salvation Army, Humana or the Red Cross and many other local charitable organizations willing to take your old clothes and give them to those who might need them or sell them in their charity shop to raise funds for a good cause.

4. If you aren’t keen on giving your clothes aways to strangers or have something other than clothes, toys or stuffed animals to give away why not connect to Freecycle, the website that creates a free marketplace for wanted unwanted objects.

Now you really have no excuse not to do a bit of Christmas cleaning!