Charities across the UK have launched recycle schemes this Christmas and one is based right here in Salford. The Christmas green scheme is a collection of new recycling aids and ideas to help the community recycle their way through the holidays.
The Christmas holidays are a wonderful, magical, joyous time for all. Full of parties, laughter and fun, but when it comes to recycling, do we live up to our green fingered nickname or do all of our recycling morals go out the window?
We all know how busy Christmas can be and when it comes to Christmas day, a lot of us find ourselves surrounded by wrapping paper, envelopes and plastic.
Although throwing all of this ‘rubbish’ away into one huge bin bag isn’t a crime it is proving damaging to the environment and there are simple ways to be more environmentally friendly this Christmas.
From glass bottles to plastic bags and wrapping paper, there are always ways we can recycle around the house.
Gearing up for your Christmas party or some caroling? Your empty bottle & cans could help power the tunes. Good thing most of you recycle!
—#christmas #caroling #plasticrecycling #recyclenow #wedo #recycle #festive #party pic.twitter.com/R4DYXUljFg— Recycle Now (@recycle_now) December 8, 2018
According to Recycle Now every Christmas here in the UK, we use enough card to cover the London Eye almost 50,000 times. Now that is a lot of card!
What’s in the box?
Now don’t worry this isn’t the film Seven, but do we really know what things we should and should not be putting in our blue bins? The ‘what’s in the box campaign’ headed by Salford Council is showing us what we need to do in order to make sure what we are recycling should actually be there.
Recycle For Greater Manchester are working with Salford City council to help stop the contamination of recycled goods and to help the community’s recycle scheme take a leap in the right direction over the Christmas holidays.
Leaflets will be distributed to 86,000 homes across Salford to ‘help Salford recycle right in the blue bin’
“The campaigns team went to the paper and card sorting facility and found that residents are putting the wrong things in their blue paper and card bin. Packaging inside cardboard boxes such as plastic wrapping and polystyrene were the most common incorrect items. There were even nappies and electrical items in the recycling. Wrong things in the blue bin lowers the quality and the value of the paper and card collected. It can even cause whole lorry loads of recycling to be rejected.”
Twitter findings
We did a Twitter Poll to find out what the local community really does to recycle and these are our findings!
Over 24 hours the polls ran and we had hundreds of responses and we now have a better, clearer idea of how people view their own recycling habits.
From the Twitter poll we found that one of the most common misconceptions with recycling around the holidays is that wrapping paper is recycled like normal paper. However, it is not and one of the ways we can check this before putting it in the blue bin is by performing THE SCRUNCH TEST!
As strange as it sounds, all we have to do to limit the amount of wasted and non recyclable products in our bins is give it a good scrunch. If the wrapping paper crinkles up and folds like you would expect of normal paper, it is highly likely that it is recyclable.
However if you buy glossy, glittery and perhaps more expensive wrapping paper, it is far less likely to be recyclable.
This video by Recycle Now demonstrates the scrunch test
Some of the websites we have found here in the UK that offer eco-friendly, recyclable wrapping material are Re-Wrapped and Happy Wraps.
If you are recycling at home and want to find out where you can recycle more, you can find all of Salford’s recycling depots here, for those items that are too big for your bins or you’re just unsure about:
Be green this Christmas and start 2019 off with a bang knowing you have done everything you can this holiday season to keep Salford as eco-friendly as possible.
We would love to know more about your Christmas recycling stories, comment below and tell us all about your Christmas day and how you clean up after.
You can follow Recycle Now’s social media here, Twitter, Facebook and their YouTube
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