How to Recycle More at Christmas

How to Recycle More at Christmas

From the Christmas tree to the excessive food we eat and the presents we buy, we create a lot of extra waste at Christmas. It’s inevitable that a lot of waste will end up in the bin, but much of it can be reused or recycled. Here’s some handy hints on how you can reuse and recycle more at Christmas.

• Keep the nicest wrapping paper for next year
• Wrapping paper is amazing for cleaning windows (the paper type, not the shiny stuff)
• Decorate the kids’ school books with the prettiest wrapping paper, or cut out any cute characters or stars printed on the paper to make a collage.

• Cut out some shapes from the card design to use as gift tags for next year.
• Christmas cards are perfect for use in craft projects, especially if they have embellishments and glittery bits on them.

• Use leftover meat in a curry and add parsnips or chickpeas. It also tastes great with a courgette and mushrooms in a Thai green curry.
• Otherwise, you can put smaller bits of turkey in a risotto. Use pearl barley instead of rice for a nice change.
• Even the skin and bones don’t have to go to waste. Boil them up with onion, garlic, herbs, celery, and carrots to make a stock for a stew or soup.

• Most councils will take real trees, and shred them up to use in parks, and some will even collect them from your home.
• You can take the needles off the branches and use them to stuff pin cushions or as potpourri.
• They also balance out the alkaline additions to compost heaps like ash.

Top Christmas recycling facts

• UK consumers bin 13,350 tonnes of glass over Christmas alone.
• In total UK consumers throw away three and a half black bin bags of packaging over the Christmas period.
• 263,000 turkeys are thrown away each Christmas.
• 7 million mince pies are thrown away each year.
• Every year UK households spend £700 million on unwanted gifts.
• Each year an average UK household will spend £185 on Christmas decorations.
• Of all the purchases made for the festive period, only 1% will still be in use 6 months down the line.
• The waste generated at Christmas is 30% higher than it is for the rest of the year.
• 230,000 tonnes of food will end up in the bin this Christmas.