Ab Fab Star Launches Christmas Recycling Campaign
- English households to create nearly three quarters of a million tonnes of EXTRA waste this Christmas1
- On average each family will throw out an EXTRA five sacks of waste2
- Extra waste equivalent to generating 1.4 million tonnes of CO2 – the same as producing enough energy as that required to enable all the households in Leeds and Doncaster3 to watch TV for a year
- Target to recycle 100 million Christmas cards
With new figures revealing that households in England will create an additional three quarters of a million tonnes of waste over Christmas – including over one billion Christmas cards4 – Ab Fab star, actress Joanna Lumley OBE today (Tuesday 4th December 2007), teamed up with Recycle Now and the Woodland Trust to deliver an early festive reminder to recycle.
Joanna Lumley said:
“Christmas is a great time for celebrations and being with our families, but we do end up creating more waste. A simple way to help reduce this and help climate change at the same time is to recycle as much as possible and Christmas cards are one of the easiest items to keep out of our bins.”
The Woodland Trust and Recycle Now hope to recycle a record 100 million cards through participating WHSmith, Tesco, TK Maxx and Marks & Spencer5 stores to help the Trust plant 24,000 trees. Last year 93 million cards were collected to enable the charity to plant 22,000 trees – or a forest the size of 44 football pitches6.
Fridey Cordingley, Head of Recycle Now said:
“The amount of extra rubbish produced over Christmas is staggering but there are lots of easy ways to help cut this down. Recycling is an easy way to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill and help tackle climate. The extra waste we create at Christmas produces 1.4 million tonnes of CO2 - the same as producing enough energy as that required to enable all the households in Leeds and Doncaster to watch TV for a year7.”
To help consumers to enjoy a green Christmas, Recycle Now has included lots of tips and advice on its website www.recyclenow.com, including a postcode locator to find out details of local recycling services.
Top tips include:
- Find out what you can recycle at home by visiting www.recyclenow.com.
- In addition to your doorstep collection there are other places you can take your recycling – including recycling centres and supermarkets – so you can drop when you shop.
- Remember to recycle your Christmas cards and support the Woodland Trust Christmas Card Recycling Scheme in conjunction with Recycle Now.
- Recycle real Christmas trees. Many DIY retailers and garden centres offer this service, so have a look on www.recyclenow.com and use the postcode locator to find one near you.
- Put a box or bin in your kitchen to make it easy to separate out items for recycling and to keep everything tidy.
- Start your own compost bin - it’s a great place to put all your vegetable peelings from Christmas dinner.
Fun Festive Facts:
- The extra festive household waste created is equivalent to generating 1.4 million
tonnes of CO2 – the same as producing enough energy as that required to fly Santa in a plane around the world on Christmas Eve a quarter of a million (273,330) times8. - Each family creates at least 68kg of CO2 from the extra waste which would produce enough energy as that required to power home fairy lights continuously for 18 years9.
For more information on recycling at Christmas visit www.recyclenow.com.
1 Source: WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme).
2 Source: WRAP
3 Source: WRAP
4 Waste Watch
5 Participating stores include: All WHSmith mainland stores (excludes Isle of Wight, Isle of Man, Belfast and Jersey); all Tesco stores excluding Tesco Express stores and all M&S stores including selected M&S Simply Food stores and excluding stores in the Republic of Ireland.
6 Source: The Woodland Trust
7 Source: WRAP
8 Source: WRAP
9 Source: WRAP
Editor's notes:
- WRAP works in partnership to encourage and enable businesses and consumers to be more efficient in their use of materials and recycle more things more often. This helps to minimise landfill, reduce carbon emissions and improve our environment.
- Established as a not-for-profit company in 2000, WRAP is backed by Government funding from Defra and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- Working in seven key areas (Construction, Retail, Manufacturing, Organics, Business Growth, Behavioural Change, and Local Authority Support), WRAP’s work focuses on market development and support to drive forward recycling and materials resource efficiency within these sectors, as well as wider communications and awareness activities including the multi-media national Recycle Now campaign for England.
- Recycle Now is a campaign to encourage people in England to recycle more things more often. Six out of ten of us now describe ourselves as committed recyclers, compared to less than half of us when the campaign began in 2004.
- More information on all of WRAP's programmes can be found on www.wrap.org.uk and for more information on the Recycle Now campaign visit www.recyclenow.com
The Woodland Trust - is the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity. It has 300,000 members and supporters. The Trust has four key aims: i) No further loss of ancient woodland; ii) Restoring and improving the biodiversity of woods; iii) Increasing new native woodland; iv) Increasing people’s understanding and enjoyment of woodland. Established in 1972, the Woodland Trust now has over 1,000 sites in its care covering approximately 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres). Access to its sites is free. Further news can be found at www.woodland-trust.org.uk
The Woodland Trust Christmas Card Recycling Scheme.
The cards collected in stores are taken to WHSmith, Tesco, TK Maxx and M&S depots, where they are collected by their own recycling agents (Severnside for Tesco, SCA Recycling for WHSmith and TK Maxx, and GSS for M&S). 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.
Recycling Credits
Money is raised through 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.
