Households urged to recycle Christmas waste

Each household will consume almost 30 litres of alcohol and beer in a major binge this Christmas, it emerged tonight.

People will splurge out on more than 11 litres of wine, 18 litres of beer, 1.5 litres of spirits, 44 litres of soft drinks and munch through two kilos of sweets and chocolates.

However, a recycling group has warned the celebrations will result in mounds of paper, bottles and cans thrown out in the rubbish.

Andrew Hetherington, chief executive of Repak, said: “This is the first Christmas period that householders will be facing pay per weight bin charges.

“By recycling all their used Christmas packaging, reusing where possible and starting to compost householders could cut by up to half the amount of waste they leave out in their regular bins.”

Repak’s Race Against Waste campaign has estimated that 20 million wine bottles, 48 million aluminium beer cans, four million rolls of wrapping paper and 2.5 million cardboard toy boxes will be thrown out.

The non-profit company, which co-ordinates and finances the recycling of packaging waste, said the drinks containers would cover, to a depth of 10-centimetres, all the football pitches in the professional football leagues in England and Scotland.

Repak, which is trying to encourage households to recycle, said cardboard and paper packaging from gifts and other items will mount up to almost 20,000 tonnes, or an average of 15.5 kilos per household.

Last year the campaign ensured people recycled more than 18,000 tonnes or around 20% of all used packaging which would have otherwise clogged up landfills.

The campaign is aiming to get households to recycle more than 20,000 tonnes of packaging – enough to fill more than 4,000 trucks.

In partnership with the 32 local authorities Repak has organised a network of 80 special Repak Green Christmas recycling centres.

The centres will accept a wider range of goods, including cardboard, paper, glass, plastic and cans, and the existing network of almost 2,000 Bring Banks will also operate.

Environment Minister Dick Roche said: “More things need to be reused, recycled and composted by more people, more often if we are to win the Race Against Waste.

“A growing number of materials can now be recycled, such as paper, cardboard, cans, plastic bottles, milk and juice cartons as well as glass bottles and jars.

“In January most of the local authorities are providing recycling facilities for Christmas trees.”

Repak recommends households use separate boxes to store the goods for recycling, make a compost bin for kitchen vegetable waste and buy products with as little packaging as possible.