Actresses don delightful dresses made from Christmas cards
For more details visit woodland-trust.org.uk/cards
TV soap babes Samia Smith (Coronation Street’s Maria Sutherland) and Sammy Winward (Emmerdale’s Katie Sugden) dealt some seasonal cheer as they joined forces with Recycle Now, the national recycling campaign for England, and donned glamorous outfits made entirely from Christmas cards to officially launch the Woodland Trust’s Christmas Card Recycling Scheme.
According to Recycle Now, a shocking 41% of adults either don’t recycle, or let their good intentions lapse over the hectic festive season, helping to account for the estimated three million tonnes of household waste generated(1) over Christmas.
Festive Facts:
- in the run up to Christmas, Royal Mail delivers more than 160 million cards, letters and packets per day (2) - approximately double the number delivered on an average day;
- nearly 3,000 tonnes of aluminium foil will be used to wrap Christmas turkey (3)
- a mountainous 15,000 tonnes of sprouts (4) will be bought in the UK during the Xmas period. Put fruit and veg peelings in a home compost bin to make festive fertiliser- and reduce the rubbish in your bin by over 20% and have free compost to make gardens bloom
- this Christmas the UK will consume almost 5.5 million jars of mincemeat, 12 million jars of pickles and 6.5 million jars of cranberry sauce all packaged in glass, but only a small percentage will get recycled (5)
- a prickly eight million Christmas trees will be bought this year in the UK, most of which will be thrown away after December, generating over 12,000 tonnes of additional rubbish!
- When it comes to recycling ‘know how’ at Christmas many of us recognise how easy it is to recycle that extra waste, but we just don’t bother to do it. While 36% claim to keep up the good work on recycling more than a third of respondents admitted that they know they can recycle their empty glass pickle and cranberry jars, yet only one in six say they actually do it.
One of the easiest items to remember to recycle is Christmas cards. For the second year Recycle Now has joined forces to support the Woodland Trust’s Christmas Card Recycling Scheme to remind people to drop off their cards at Tesco (excluding Express and Metro) and WHSmith High Street stores throughout January 2006.
Corrie star, Samia Smith, said:
“More than one billion Christmas cards are sent each year and we need to recycle as many of these as possible. It’s unbelievable that one in five (22%) of us still throw our Christmas cards in the bin when it really couldn’t be easier to recycle them and stop them going to waste !”
Emmerdale’s Sammy Winward, adds:
“A record 58 million cards were recycled in January. We hope to beat this record in 2006 and collect at least 60 million cards for the Woodland Trust and make it a regular seasonal tradition!”
Jennie Price, Chief Executive of WRAP, said:
“Christmas can be a stressful time, but recycling should come even more naturally at this time of year as the dustbin will fill up quite quickly.
“Nearly eight out of ten homes in England now have doorstep recycling services which makes remembering to recycle easy and a really effective way to help cut down on the amount of household waste that is traditionally thrown away.”
To find out more information about recycling at Christmas or to find out details of your nearest recycling facility, visit http://www.recyclenow.com
Images
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For media enquiries contact:
Ioan Reed-Aspley, Corporate PR & Communications Officer on 01476 581112 or 07786 110003, email: ioanreedaspley@woodland-trust.org.uk
Notes to editors:
1 Waste Watch
2 Royal Mail
3 Alupro
4 The British Sprout Association
5 British Glass
Recycle Now survey: The survey was conducted in Great Britain via OnlineBus, an internet omnibus survey. A sample size of 1686 adults aged 16-64 were interviewed by CAWI between 16th – 20th June 2005.
Recycle Now: Launched by Matthew Pinsent in September 2004, Recycle Now is the £10 million multi-media national recycling campaign, implemented and managed by WRAP (the Waste and Resources Action Programme) on behalf of the Government. The aim of the campaign is to encourage more people to recycle more stuff, more often.
WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action Programme) is a major UK programme established to promote resource efficiency. Its particular focus is on creating stable and efficient markets for recycled materials and products and removing the barriers to waste minimisation, re-use and recycling. A not-for-profit company, WRAP is backed by substantial Government funding from Defra and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
WRAP is currently running fifteen programmes. Twelve of these relate to market development, comprising nine material streams (Paper, Plastics, Glass, Wood, Organics and Aggregates, Tyres, Batteries and Plasterboard) and three generic areas (Procurement, Financial Mechanisms and Regional Market Development). Three further programmes relate to the wider resource efficiency remit - Collections, Communications and Awareness and Waste Minimisation.
WRAP’s Recycled Paper Advocacy Team, launched in September 2005, is already working with a number of large companies and Government departments to help them switch to using high quality recycled paper for their office requirements and printed publication.
More information on all of WRAP's programmes can be found on www.wrap.org.uk and for more details of the Recycle Now campaign visit www.recyclenow.com
The Woodland Trust Christmas Card Recycling Scheme:The cards collected in stores are taken to both WHSmith and Tesco depots, where they are collected by their own recycling agents (SCA Recycling for WHSmith and Severnside for Tesco). 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.
Nottinghamshire County Council contacts local authorities on behalf of The Woodland Trust and facilitates the collecting of recycling credits from those authorities which have agreed to pay The Woodland Trust for waste that does not have to be disposed of in landfill sites.
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.
The Woodland Trust: 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 via this website.
