Turning Christmas cards into trees
The Woodland Trust is dedicated to planting trees throughout the UK. Recycling Christmas cards is one of the ways they can do this, and M&S is committed to helping them.
Every year, we send thousands of Christmas cards to each other, but most of those cards are just thrown in the bin and sent to landfill.
According to figures supplied by the Woodland Trust, the UK is one of the least wooded countries in Europe, with just 12% of it being covered in woods (in Europe, the average figure is 44%). Organisations such as The Woodland Trust use revenues from recycled cards to help plant thousands more trees throughout the UK, with 17 trees being saved for every tonne of paper recycled. They do this by claiming recycling credits from local waste disposal authorities and via small contributions from their partners.
For Christmas 2007, M&S teamed up with the Woodland Trust and Recycle Now to help them achieve the target for their annual Christmas Card Recycling Scheme. Throughout January, Woodland Trust card recycling boxes could be found in most M&S stores across the UK. Thanks to you, we collected just over 8 million cards (8,277,228) which equates to 164 tonnes.
At the end of January these cards were then taken to our distribution centres, where they were graded and taken to recycling plants. Once at the recycling plant, the cards were sorted, baled and taken to the mill where they were reduced to pulp, separated out and sent through a number of chemical, heat and mechanical processes. Finally, the raw pulp was rolled and layered to make huge paper reels – ready to go off and be reused in brand new products such as tissue paper, office paper or corrugated cardboard.
Doesn’t that make Christmas even happier?
M&S Café triple certification coffee
When you order a cup of coffee in our café it will be freshly made from scratch. Every M&S Barista is expertly trained to make perfect shots and frothy milk with every cup. You'll also find little extras like our coffee loyalty card
