There's a new, ethical way to get rid of unwanted Christmas gifts - swap them for stuff you do want, online.

Online swapping and recycling has taken off in the UK over the past year, with several new swap sites going live in the last year. You can now literally swap anything for everything online - whether that's garden tools (at the Garden Shop), CDs (at Reload Exchange) or DVDs and games (at Swopex).

It's a new, ethical way to swap unwanted gifts this Christmas – without spending a penny.

The system is a particularly good way to recycle books, because there's one book swap site in the UK –  http://www.ReadItSwapIt.co.uk - which is totally free to use.

ReadItSwapIt was the first known book swap site in the UK and remains the only 100 per cent free site of its kind.

Members can swap old books for new ones – completely free of charge.

Members can choose from thousands of books available on the site, which was invented two years ago by two young British entrepreneurs, Neil Ferguson and Andrew Bathgate, in the hope that it would encourage book swapping and giving in the UK.

Despite incurring costs running the site, they do not charge members anything and now boast over 500 users.

"We wanted to create a site that would enable people to gain access to hundreds of books, without having to spend any money," said 26nyear-old ReadItSwapIt co-founder Neil Ferguson, a computer programmer who set up the site in his spare time.

"Christmas is about giving, not spending money, and that's really what ReadItSwapIt is all about," he added.

So if you're giving a book as a gift this Christmas but you're not sure the recipient will like it, be sure to mention ReadItSwapIt.