Did you know 10 per cent of the year’s total rubbish is produced during the Christmas holiday?!
In Gloucestershire alone, the average family produces an extra four or five bags of waste over Christmas – that’s nearly 30,000 tonnes of waste for the county as a whole.
In just three days over Christmas our total consumption and spending on food, travel, lighting and gifts generates a staggering 5.5% of our total annual carbon footprint.
Cllr Stan Waddington, Cabinet member for environment, said: “Having a good time at Christmas inevitably creates extra waste, but recycling it and reducing your carbon footprint has never been easier. Food and drink cans can be collected with your kerbside recycling or taken to your nearest recycling bank or Household Recycling Centre (HRC).”
Most people will celebrate with one or two drinks – adding up to an extra seven million glass bottles and jars for the county. 13,350 tonnes of glass will be thrown out in the UK during the festive period. Recycling them would save the CO2 equivalent of taking 1,300 cars off the road for a year.
Glass bottles and jars can be recycled over and over again into:
· new bottles and jars
· ‘processed sand’ – finely ground glass for golf bunkers
· ‘glassphalt’ – for road surfacing
Most aluminium cans are made into new cans – taking only 6-8 weeks to appear back on the shelves.
Grace Jose from Gloucester with her 'Green Christmas Tree' made entirely from household rubbish, Grace used dozens of bottles and cans to make her alternative tree.
Steel cans are used to make bicycle frames, pipes, ships and railway tracks.
