Each month at the Gate, we set ourselves a monthly Green Gate Challenge. 

Green Gate is what we call our sustainability policy and we like to embark on monthly challenges.

These challenges are about changing how we think in the long term (and not just for that month), but we’ve found that giving each month a focus helps us keep sustainability and our Green Gate Policy at the forefront of our thinking as an organisation. 

Last month we decided to give recycling and re-using our focus for December.

Here’s how we found it!

For the last few years, I’ve always tended to wrap Christmas presents in old magazines. With so many festive free tube magazines being handed out, it’s easy to make presents look fun and festive, so I did this for my office secret santa this year.  Next year, I’m excited to take this a step further: I’ve been mulling over the idea of proposing a book exchange instead of secret santa gift giving. I think this has the potential to be a more interesting, affordable and environmentally-friendly way to spread cheer in December.  Sometimes, you have to completely re-think traditions to find a better, more sustainable alternative, and that’s what we do best at the Gate!   
Chrissy, General Manager 

As previous Green Gate Challenges have been quite … challenging, I have to say that I was really proud of myself this month. Instead of buying new wrapping paper for my Christmas presents I have used the one from last year and used printed paper and newspaper as plan B wrapping or for transport protection. This challenge also got me questioning (properly; I had questioned it several times, but never seriously) the existence of wrapping paper. Although it’s nice to have a surprise when unwrapping present, the paper is really only used once and for a few seconds only. This is such a waste! So next Christmas I’m going to try to find an alternative which is more kind to our lovely planet.
Suzy, Theatre Administrator