How to maximise the fun � and minimise the impact on the environment

CHRISTMAS comes once a year but its impact on the environment lasts much longer. In the short term, the festive season means even more rubbish in our already-overflowing landfill sites, but in the long term the greenhouse gases created by flying fresh cranberries to the UK, or importing cheap gifts from China, will have devastating consequences on developing countries where global warming is causing droughts and famine.

Concerned consumers can still, however, enjoy a merry and ethical Christmas. Here, a panel of experts explain how.

Food Christmas pudding is uniquely enjoyed in the UK where we are set to eat 25 million of them over the next week, spending another £28m on Christmas cakes and desserts. Sprouts are another favourite with Brits who spent £30m on them last week (we eat an average of 14 each apparently), and tomorrow we will collectively eat 10 million turkeys.

Yet a proliferation in the availability of organic produce could mean every element in your festive meal, from the bird to the loaf for the bread sauce, has been farmed without pesticides. "Organic farming is better for wildlife, causes lower pollution from sprays, produces less carbon dioxide and less dangerous wastes," claims the Soil Association, a campaign group. It also says that organic food has higher levels of vitamins and minerals.

So is the production of organic food better for you and the environment? Not necessarily so, says Professor Anthony Trewavas of Edinburgh University, who warns that organic food is a "public con".

He says: "Organic farming is inefficient as it uses more land and more resources to produce a lower yield. If we wanted to have global organic farming then we would have to use land currently growing rainforest - so that's not a good idea."

Trewavas also suggests that if we eat fruit and vegetables produced by conventional farming methods, we are still only going to have a tiny trace of synthetic pesticides in our system. He says the natural toxins produced by fruit and vegetables to ward off insects and other plants in the field are up to "20,000 times" higher than the traces of man-made pesticide people eat in the average day, and that "your conventionally farmed brussels sprouts are just as healthy as organic farming".

Whether you choose organic or not, it is likely that a car, lorry, train, ship or plane has brought your food to the table. Consumer choice was once dictated by season, but produce from avocados to grapefruits is now available in the UK all year round.

At the same time, shoppers have stopped making daily walks to local stores, and instead use cars to drive to the supermarket once or twice a week.

The distance from the farm to kitchen cupboards is measured in "food miles", with a government report produced last year finding that since 1978 the average distance of food travelling by road has increased by half.

CO2 emissions from food transport, including air freight, meanwhile, increased by 12% from 1992 to 2002, showing that food distribution is a major factor in the production of greenhouse gases.

The best ethical path to take is to buy locally and only purchase what you need, says Ruth Rosselson of Ethical Consumer magazine. By the time Christmas is over, there will be an extra 750 million bottles and 500 million drinks cans in the bin.

"Families throw out about a third of the food they make over Christmas," she says. "If you are cooking for four people, don't make enough food for 10 - just try to buy what you need, not what looks good on the table.

"A traditional Christmas dinner uses food that is in season, such as brussels sprouts and parsnips - look at where these items are from when you are buying them. There is no need to buy them from an overseas country which uses up air miles to import them.

"A healthy, ethical Christmas means spending less and consuming less."

Solution: Buy locally where possible (see www.scottishfarmersmarkets.co.uk for details of your local farmers' market).

Compost the leftovers (see www.

recyclenow.com for eco-friendly composters).

Check the Fair Trade website for products and details on companies that use Fairtrade methods (see www.fairtrade.org.uk).

TREE AND TRIMMINGS Living rooms that are papered from top to bottom in cards and tinsel may look the part but they carry an ethical cost.

Whether you choose a plastic tree or one of the seven million real trees sold in Britain for Christmas, there are pros and cons with each. The plastic tree has probably been imported from Asia, where problems caused by industrial pollution, especially from plastic products, are huge. However, it will last for years and, unlike a real tree, won't have needed water, land, fertiliser and transport to get to your living room.

The real tree/fake tree is a dilemma, admits Lang Banks of Friends of the Earth Scotland. "Both have their own impacts. Real trees require pesticides, fertilisers, are not havens for wildlife but they can at least be recycled or composted, although only if the consumer bothers to do this.

"Plastic trees can re-used for a long time, again if only the consumer bothers to do this, but they take non-renewable petrochemicals to produce, produce toxic emissions during production and cannot be recycled, so will end up in landfill at the end of their useful lives."

Banks says on balance "a real tree just edges it" but advises concerned consumers to buy one grown in Scotland - or, as he has done, instead "decorate the giant yukka sitting in your living room".

In terms of decorations, plastic ones should be ruled out, says Rosselson. "Use old magazines or newspapers to make decorations, or buy recycled ones. It is useful to create the market for recycled goods so there is more demand for people to recycle in the first place."

The Energy Savings Trust also has a handy guide to the energy your Christmas decorations use in terms of your electricity bill, which is not the most sparkly reading. For example, a typical string of Christmas tree lights left on for 10 hours a day over the 12 days of Christmas would use enough electricity to watch the Queen's speech more than 200 times (creating enough CO2 to fill 52 party balloons). Conversely, if every household installed one energy-efficient light-bulb we would save enough electricity to watch the Queen's speech 67 times.

It also estimates that enough CO2 is created by lights on Christmas trees across the UK over a 12-day period to fill nearly 6500 hot-air balloons, and that householders who use "extravagant" outdoor Christmas lights can expect about £100 extra on their next bill.

Solution: Recycle your Christmas tree. Most local authorities offer this service (except Highland region, where residents are advised to cut up their tree and bin it). The Cosla website has links to each local authority in Scotland (see www.cosla.gov.uk).

Invest in energy-saving light-bulbs (see the Energy Savings Trust website at www.est.org.uk for advice; businesses large and small can contact the Carbon Trust at www.carbontrust.co.uk).

Turn off your Christmas lights when you can.

For £11.20 the Carbon Neutral Company is offering to offset the carbon created by your Christmas, including travel, lights and food emissions (buy online at www.carbonneutral.com).

CARDS AND GIFTS Despite a number of businesses dropping cards in favour of emails to clients and colleagues, more than 200,000 trees are felled to make Christmas cards each year. While some cards can be recycled, increasing amounts of foil and glitter make this challenging. Glossy wrapping paper is also difficult to recycle.

Ruth Rosselson says: "Don't cover gifts in miles of wrapping paper, and buy paper that is recycled and that you will recycle again."

So what about gifts themselves? Oxfam and other charities have reported a growth in charity gifts (Oxfam's bestselling present this year has been school dinners for children overseas), but Rosselson says an "ethical" Christmas is about buying presents that are "made locally and sourced locally".

"It is ethical to support small businesses in your area where the benefit comes back to your area," she says. "It is also important to support recycling by buying goods made from recycled products so they have somewhere to go at the other end."

If, on the other hand, you receive designer gear from Santa, prompting a clear-out of last season's duds - we throw out a reported 80,000 tonnes of old clothes after Christmas - then you are advised to either recycle the items you wish to dispose of, or give them to charity.

Liz Sims, who manages an Oxfam shop on the southside of Glasgow, explains: "Like all shops we have to rearrange our stock after the Christmas rush, however we are not in the position to order stock in.

"What I really need in the period after Christmas is good-quality clothes and goods that people no longer need but could be of use to someone else.

So, for example, if someone gets a new winter coat for Christmas but has a perfectly good one they know they will no longer wear hanging in their wardrobe then I would be delighted if they donated it to us. It works well all round."

The growth of shopping over the internet, which in theory reduces car journeys, presents a new set of concerns. Consumers in the UK alone spent £9.8 billion online last year. But there is no room for complacency among the web generation.

Your goods still have to be manufactured, shipped to the UK if not made here, and then delivered to your door. Researchers from Heriot-Watt University suggested earlier this year that shoppers are simply using the time they save by buying groceries online to undertake alternative car journeys.

Lastly, 4.2 million of us are still paying off credit card bills from last Christmas. So cutting down on everything for tomorrow might be a good idea ...

Solution: Take unwanted gifts, clothes you are getting rid of, or quality goods to Oxfam or your local charity shop (see www.oxfam.org.uk for your nearest branch and for how to buy gifts for overseas aid projects).

Amazon.co.uk and Tesco.co.uk start their online sales on Boxing Day.