Kochi, Dec 20 (IANS): In an effort to promote use of recycled or discarded materials, a hotel group has put to good use dry leaves, old newspapers and bottles to get Christmas decorations made and installed at its 10 properties in south India.

As one enters a property of CGH Earth, one comes across Christmas trees of varying sizes crafted from old magazines, stars cut from old cartons, baubles from old paper, wreaths formed by twisting newspapers and colourful curls made from old plastic bottles.

A snowman, a reindeer and Santa Claus and table decor from bottles add to the environment-friendly effort.

As much as 315 kg newspapers and magazines, 100 kg wood, over 1,000 plastic bottles, 500 egg shells, 30 kg coconut shells, 30 kg of bamboos, 50 kg hay and 10 kg paper pulp, apart from two kg dry banyan leaves were used to create the decorations.

The company officials had been sourcing used materials from their hotels for the past three months for the Christmas decors.

"Twenty-five children from Raksha special school near here were trained in making these decorations and then supplied with the raw materials. Later, we purchased the semi-finished or finished products at a specific price. All the decors at our hotel here are made by these children," George Joseph, general manager of Casino Hotel here, told IANS.

The project was the brainchild of hotelier Jose Dominic.