According to official figures, each person throws away an average of 110lbs of rubbish at Christmas - the equivalent of nine regular sized turkeys or more than 60 loaves of bread. Christmas usually results in around three million tons of waste, which is enough to fill 400,000 double-decker buses, and equates to around a tenth of all domestic waste generated in a year according to Recycle Now, a Government backed recycling campaign.
Although nine out of 10 households in England now have access to a kerbside recycling scheme, a study by the Government funded Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has shown that 41% of the population admit to lapsing on recycling over Christmas and consigning everything to the bin. This results in extra demand for landfilling waste and extra emissions of methane, the potent greenhouse gas generated by such sites.
The potential for extra waste is considerable given the shopping list for an average Christmas in England. This include 15,000 tons of Brussels sprouts, which is equivalent in weight to 37 jumbo jets and 175 mince pies, nearly 600 times the height of Everest. Recycle Now has been trying to encourage people to shop in a way that generates as little waste as possible as more than half the waste generated at Christmas could be recycled. In addition, they are also promoting the Christmas card recycling scheme which benefits the Woodland Trust and has drop-off bins at Tesco, TK Maxx and WH Smith.
