Give a gift to the environment this Christmas by taking steps to reduce your waste, recycle wrapping, and reuse any unwanted electrical items.
According to WRAP, the UK is estimated to use almost 300,000 tonnes of card packaging at Christmas. This would cover the return distance between London and Lapland 103 times or cover Big Ben 260,000 times.
A three-month campaign has now been launched by Recycle Now to encourage the public to recycle more of their Christmas cards and wrapping paper this year. The ‘Paper and card, too valuable to discard’ campaign will run until February 2016. It aims to change behaviour, getting residents to recycle as much paper and card as they can.
We are going one step further at Clarity to reduce our Christmas waste this year, says Communications Manager, Lucy Brooks. “We have opted to give a donation to charity in place of sending Christmas cards. This year our collection goes to Macmillan. We have also wrapped our office secret santa presents in old magazines and scrap paper, which we will then of course recycle afterwards.”
In addition to recycling paper and card, consumers should also make sure to recycle or reuse unwanted or broken electrical items that are replaced for new ones at Christmas. Your old kettles, televisions, electric toothbrushes or broken christmas tree lights don’t have to go to waste. They may seem worthless, but are in fact full of valuable materials. Our Recycle with Clarity initiative has a network of sites across the UK that will take old and unwanted electrical items for recycling and we also work with charities that will refurbish and re-use items in good working condition.
Our top tips for looking after the environment this Christmas:
If you are interested in joining the Recycle with Clarity network of WEEE sites, please contact us today on 0845 129 7177.
