Posts filed under ‘Recycling’
Energy Efficient Christmas
Statistics
- The typical Christmas dinner has travelled 30,000 food miles to arrive at your table! Check out the Green Party’s article for more details.
- Around half of the waste produced by households at Christmas could easily be recycled, but last year almost 90% ended up in the dustbin.
- Around 4,000 million sprouts are bought in the week before Christmas. All those peelings could be composted.
- It’s tempting to over-buy food at Christmas, but save yourself some cash by trying to plan menus for the holiday season.
- More than 10 million turkeys are bought and 4,200 tonnes of aluminium foil are thrown away in the UK each Christmas.
- Last year we sent around 744 million Christmas cards.
- If all these were recycled instead of thrown away, it would help to save the equivalent of 248,000 trees.
- More than 8,000 tonnes of wrapping paper will be used on Christmas presents, using the equivalent of approximately 50,000 trees. Last Christmas, DEFRA estimated that 83 square km of wrapping paper ended up in UK rubbish bins.
Christmas Tree Collection
This information is straight from EEBC’s recycling team
- The Xmas tree collection is available to everybody (irrespective of whether they subscribe to normal garden waste recycling or not).
- They just leave the tree out on their normal rubbish collection day.
- They have two chances at this on the weeks commencing 8th and 15th January.
- If they miss these weeks then there is no back-up collection: they’ve missed it (unless they’re normal garden waste subscribers in which case they can stick it in their bin on any normal fortnightly collection)!
- The tree MUST be clear of decorations and anything else – we just want the tree!
- The collection is for REAL Xmas trees only (I know that sounds obvious but …).
- The trees may be ground into wood chips and used to mulch gardens or parks, instead of being dumping in landfill sites.
The Woodland Trust Christmas Card recycling scheme
You can take your cards down to W H Smith, T K Maxx, or Tesco from 2nd to 31st January, where they will be recycled and help raise funds for the Woodland Trust. The Woodland Trust are aiming to get 90 million cards this year. Last year they raised almost £100,000 from the card recycling.
Last year people in the UK sent around 744 million Christmas cards. If all these were recycled instead of thrown away, it would help to save the equivalent of 248,000 trees.
Other useful Links and Tips
- Buy gifts made from recycled materials – try Greener Style, Friends of the Earth,
- Buy local food produce for Christmas Parties and reduce your “food miles” (the distance your food has had to travel to get to your house. Order your turkey early! Try the butchers on Epsom’s Upper High Street for meat or how about VegBoxSchemes for delivery of locally grown fruit and vegetables.
