A workshop showing creative ways to avoid filling bins with plastic waste at Christmas took place this week.

The plastic-free Christmas workshop was run by The Manx Wildlife Trust with 13 residents making environmentally-friendly tree decorations, festive crackers and more.

Dawn Dickens, biodiversity education officer at the trust , directed the session at Harvey Briggs Library in Onchan.

She said: ’It was to help people negotiate avoiding plastics at Christmas time, which is a key time when our rubbish bins are full to over flowing with plastic rubbish and packaging.

’It also supports our #Manxplasticpledge campaign.’

She explained that the trust is encouraging residents to reduce their single-use plastics ’as much as possible’, but are also supporting them by giving ideas on how to replace the unsustainable material.

The workshop included making your own peppermint cream sweets, as buying sweets brings in a lot of packaging, as well as decorating containers to put them in.

’We also made our own crackers and put in chocolate to avoid all those little plastic toys and gimmicks that no one really wants,’ said Dawn.

’A pack of 30 jokes, hats and snaps costs only £5 and makes for cheaper crackers. They are also a great family making session too.

’We made our own potato prints and decorated brown paper and brown paper bags to avoid buying shiny wrapping paper that is often plastic coated, or decorated with glitter, meaning it can’t be recycled.

’Then to avoid all the plastic decorations we used twigs to make rustic looking reindeer and Christmas tree decorations, we had a lovely lot of very individual trees.’

Those who took part in the workshop were said to be ’enthusiastic’ about making their own plastic-free alternatives.

’We had quite a few comments that it reminded people of their own childhood and how it was bringing Christmas back to a family bonding time and not a mad Christmas dash to buy things at a rapid pace in the run up to Christmas,’ she said.

The trust’s gift shop in Peel currently sells plastic-free products such as bees wax wraps - which replace cling film.

Its members have also made steps to cut down on plastic.

’Lara Howe, our marine officer, talked about her experiences of living a month plastic freeâ?¦ one of her hardest things to find was a cucumber not wrapped up in plastic,’ Dawn said.

’We looked at minimising waste of your food plastics by taking in reusable bags, and containers to put your veg in to be weighed. Also that a lot of independent butchers will let you take in your own containers to place meat products in.’

The workshop participants also filled in a #Manxplasticpledge tag to hang on the MWT’s Christmas tree at Ronaldsway to challenge people about their use of plastic in everyday life.