Recycle Your Christmas Waste

Facts And Figures

Did you know that over 3 million tonnes of waste is create over the Christmas

festive period in the UK alone. That's approximately 350 thousand double decker

buses of waste.
Approximately, 1 billion Christmas cards will be sent this year. That’s an average

of 17 cards per person (from every baby to every adult in the UK)
7½ million Christmas trees will be bought in the UK this Christmas. 6 million of these trees will be thrown away, that’s approximately 9,000 tonnes or waste.

83 square km of wrapping paper from the UK alone will end up in the refuse bin, that’s enough to cover the whole of Brighton and Hove.

10 million turkeys will be sold in the UK, that's the equivalent of 136 jumbo jets.

24 million jars of mincemeat, pickle and cranberry sauce will be thrown away. By recycling these you would save enough energy to boil water for 60 million cups of tea. Only 38% of glass is recycled, the rest ends up in the landfill bin.

It is estimated that we will use an additional 500 million drinks cans over the Christmas period, that’s an additional 20-30% of cans collected each year during Christmas.

4,200 tonnes of foil in the UK alone will be thrown away, that's enough to stretch to the North Pole and back approximately 52 times.

Approximately, 15000 tonnes of brussel sprouts, weighing as much as 37 jumbo jets will be purchased in the uk this christmas. 750 tonnes (1.8 jumbo jets) of the sprouts will be removed before cooking and could be composted , 5,700 tonnes (14.1 jumbo jets) will be eaten and 8,550 tonnes (21.1 jumbo jets) will be thrown away.

Here are some suggestions on how you can recycle your Christmas waste.

Recycle your glass, paper, beverage cartons, cans, foil and plastic bottles via your local neighbourhood recycling point. Alternatively, residents who are on the Crown scheme can place their paper, cans and foil in the blue box. If you also recive a plastic bottle collection, please place your paper in the blue box and the cans, foil and plastic bottles in the white bag.

Residents on the Crown Caddy scheme can place their paper in the blue caddy and the cans, foil, plastic bottles and beverage cartons in the red caddy.
Compost your Christmas tree by taking it to one of the Household Waste Recycling Sites or place out with your green waste bin if you are on the Crown or the Crown Caddy Scheme.

If you are on the crown service, place your cardboard (e.g. toy boxes, boxes from mince pies) in your green waste bin for composting but don’t forget to remove any plastic from the boxes. Alternatively, if you do not receive the crown service, some of the household waste recycling sites will accept cardboard for recycling.

Take your Christmas cards to your local W H Smiths, T K Maxx, Marks & Spencers or Tesco’s, where they are donated to the Woodland Trust. The cards are recycled into new paper products and photocopying paper by SCA Recycling and Sevenside Recycling. The funds raised by the scheme are then used to the Woodland Trusts ‘Tree for All’ campaign. In 2007 93 million Christmas cards were collected for the Woodland Trust. This year there target is 100 million.

Alternatively they can be placed in the cardboard bin at any of the Household Waste Recycling Sites or if you are on the Crown or the Crown Caddy Scheme, you can place you Christmas cards in your bin for green waste.
Non-metallic wrapping paper with the sticky tape removed can be recycled in the newspaper/magazine bins at the Household Waste Recycling Sites. You may also like to save the paper and re-use it the following year.

Donate your used stamps to the charity of your choice. Various different charities collect stamps which are then sold to dealers. They can raise £1.50 per kilo for British stamps and up to £12.50 per kilo for foreign stamps.

For more information please visit your our recycling directory