Consumers urged to keep Christmas green

DON’T let packaging snowball out of control this Christmas, Repak has warned.

Over the festive period consumers will go through around four bottles of wine, nine beer cans, eight plastic drinks bottles and nearly one roll of wrapping paper every second.

And enough beer and wine bottles will be emptied that, joined end to end, would stretch from Dublin to Tokyo in Japan.

We will use 23,000 tonnes of cardboard and paper, the same average weight as 511 fully loaded articulated trucks and we will drink enough alcohol to fill Lough Neagh five times over.

Repak is hoping all these scary statistics will encourage everyone to celebrate a green Christmas by using their green bins and jingling all the way down to their recycling centres and bottle banks.

According to Repak, each household will generate about 80,000 tonnes of used packaging over the Christmas period. There is a 30% increase in the amount of packaging used at this time of year.

It is estimated that 164 million drink containers, including alcoholic and non-alcoholic cans and bottles will be consumed during the numerous Christmas parties and nights out over the festive season.

Last year Repak supported the recycling of almost 32,000 tonnes of used packaging — up 10% on the previous year.

Repak chief executive, Andrew Hetherington, said that, with some encouragement, consumers react enthusiastically to the call for a Repak Green Christmas.

“We are asking householders this year to examine their bin and to recycle items that they have never recycled before, such as mince pie trays or used Christmas crackers, selection and chocolate boxes and biscuit tins,” he said.

“Consumers are at the front line of recycling and their enthusiasm and participation is crucial in helping to reduce our Christmas waste mountain,” he said.

Repak Green Christmas, now in its seventh year, receives some support from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and local Government under the Race Against Waste campaign.

Environment Minister John Gormley thanked householders for their recycling efforts over the past year and urged everyone to make a new year’s resolution to use less packaging in 2008.

“Recycling performance has gone through the roof in recent years and people in Ireland can be rightly proud of the part they are playing in helping the environment by using their green bins or bringing packaging waste to recycling centres,” he said.

Full details of Green Christmas recycling centres, their opening hours, local contractor collection information and Christmas tree recycling drop-off points are available at www.repak.ie.