As many as one billion greeting cards, tonnes of packaging and millions of Christmas trees are on the way to landfill – although much of the waste could have been recycled. As millions of UK households throw out used wrapping, discarded boxes and plastic ties, the weight of refuse to be collected over the coming days is expected to set a new record.
Watchdog groups are warning that rubbish created by an estimated 100 million toys that were unwrapped at Christmas will not only be burning new holes in the earth’s ozone layer, it is likely to be doing the same in the pockets of UK residents.
WRAP, the Waste and Resources Action Programme, claim that toy manufacturers are not stressing the importance of recycling on their packaging, and that, as a result of this, most wrap and packaging will unnecessarily end up in landfill. From the Christmas 2008 holiday alone, more than 400 extra tonnes of harmful carbon emissions will result.
This news is a setback to the government’s 2007 Waste Strategy, which had the goal of seeing at least 40 per cent of all UK household waste being recycled by 2010.
A Recycle Now survey has shown that 89 per cent of parents in the UK having children under 12 years of age would like to recycle toy packaging, but 53 per cent of them said it was difficult to understand which parts were recyclable.
www.wrap.org.uk
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