After weeks of shopping and careful planning to buy the perfect Christmas presents, the big day is now over and done with for another year.
But as the festive decorations start to be packed away until next December, households have been issued a warning over binning leftover Christmas wrapping paper.
It’s estimated that the average household uses four rolls of wrapping paper to wrap their presents only for it to be thrown away.
Around 227,000 miles of Christmas wrapping paper is binned every year, which is equivalent to 108 million rolls every year in the UK. But unfortunately not all wrapping paper can be recycled so households are warned to bear this in mind before throwing it away.
Some Christmas wrapping paper can’t be recycled as it contains more than just paper. This is particularly true of shiny or glittery paper which typically contains plastic, foil and other non-paper additives which are hard to separate.
It means that any wrapping paper that is laminated, plastic, foil or glittery cannot be recycled and must instead be thrown away with general waste, where it will end up in landfill or incineration.
In his book ‘Plastic Sucks’, McFly star and author Dougie Poynter, warns people against buying wrapping paper that is not 100% recyclable as it is damaging to the environment.
Poynter says: “So many party items are single-use plastics. Balloons, party poppers and confetti. It’s quite a weird thing to think that these things we use to celebrate life could actually be taking life once we are done with them.
“Lots of wrapping paper contains plastic – especially the shiny glittery kind. Watch out for glittery greetings cards too and choose a recycled paper design instead.
“Sticky tape is plastic too. Where possible use string or ribbon to wrap your parcels. And while we’re feeling festive, tinsel and baubles are usually full of plastic, so why not hang Christmas cookies or strings of popcorn from the tree.”
To help cut down on general waste being sent to landfill, shoppers are urged to use wrapping paper that is made from 100% paper as this can be fully recycled.
You can also reuse your wrapping paper from last year to help reduce the amount of waste, buy items with less packaging, or use alternative items to wrap your presents such as furoshiki, reusable gift bags, vintage tins, tea towels and scarves.