It has been revealed this month that green revellers in Northern Ireland recycled almost two million Christmas cards last year as part of a Woodland Trust initiative. The Northern Ireland public made a huge contribution to the Christmas Card Recycling Scheme last year by handling in 39.22 tonnes of card. The Scheme is now in its eleventh year and in January 2007 smashed all previous records with the UK-wide collection of 93 million Christmas cards - the equivalent of 1,844 tonnes and saving 2,400 tonnes of carbon dioxide greenhouse gases.
Patrick Cregg, the Trust's operations director in Northern Ireland said, "Christmas is a time when a massive amount of waste is generated, which unfortunately ends up in landfill sites. Recycling Christmas cards is one way to help address this problem, while helping to save woods and trees."
This festive period, the Woodland Trust has teamed up with Tesco, TK Maxx and Marks & Spencer to run its seasonal scheme. You can take your cards to your local store during January 2008 and place them in the special recycling bins provided. The cards are then taken to paper mills where they are recycled into brand new paper products.
