Recycle at Christmas - personal options

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According to Recycle Now, a shocking 41% of adults either don’t recycle, or let their good intentions lapse over the hectic festive season, helping to account for the estimated three million tonnes of household waste generated (in the UK, source: Wastewatch) over Christmas.


 * in the run up to Christmas, Royal Mail delivers more than 160 million cards, letters and packets per day (source: Royal Mail) - approximately double the number delivered on an average day;
 * nearly 3,000 tonnes of aluminium foil will be used to wrap Christmas turkey (source: Alupro)
 * a mountainous 15,000 tonnes of sprouts (source: The British Sprout Association) will be bought in the UK during the Xmas period. Put fruit and veg peelings in a home compost bin to make festive fertiliser - and reduce the rubbish in your bin by over 20% and have free compost to make gardens bloom
 * this Christmas the UK will consume almost 5.5 million jars of mincemeat, 12 million jars of pickles and 6.5 million jars of cranberry sauce all packaged in glass, but only a small percentage will get recycled (source: British Glass)
 * a prickly eight million Christmas trees will be bought this year in the UK, most of which will be thrown away after December, generating over 12,000 tonnes of additional rubbish!

When it comes to recycling ‘know how’ at Christmas many of us recognise how easy it is to recycle that extra waste, but we just don’t bother to do it. While 36% claim to keep up the good work on recycling more than a third of respondents admitted that they know they can recycle their empty glass pickle and cranberry jars, yet only one in six say they actually do it.

One of the easiest items to remember to recycle is Christmas cards. For the second year Recycle Now has joined forces to support the Woodland Trust’s Christmas Card Recycling Scheme to remind people to drop off their cards at Tesco (excluding Express and Metro) and WHSmith High Street stores throughout January 2006.

To find out more information about recycling at Christmas or to find out details of your nearest recycling facility, visit www.recyclenow.com

The Woodland Trust Christmas Card Recycling Scheme
The cards collected in stores are taken to both WHSmith and Tesco depots, where they are collected by their own recycling agents (SCA Recycling for WHSmith and Severnside for Tesco). The cards are then graded and taken to recycling plants where they are treated and eventually turned into new products such as tissue paper, photocopy paper or corrugated cardboard.

Nottinghamshire County Council contacts local authorities on behalf of The Woodland Trust and facilitates the collecting of recycling credits from those authorities which have agreed to pay The Woodland Trust for waste that does not have to be disposed of in landfill sites.

Recycling Credits
A Recycling Credit is the value of the saving made by the County Council in NOT having to landfill any household waste that is recycled. The County Council chooses to pay this saving in disposal costs back to any voluntary or community groups that are involved in collecting household waste for recycling (in the case of the CCRS - the Woodland Trust) because they wish to promote recycling in their area. The value of the credit varies across the different Districts due to differences in disposal costs, and is paid for each tonne of household waste that is recycled. The value of the credit increases each year with RPI (Retail Price Index) and with any increases in Landfill Tax.

Reference Woodland Trust press release