Christmas Card Recycling
The Woodland Trust is dedicated to creating native woodland across the UK, providing more green space open to the public and increased habitats for wildlife. Christmas card recycling is one of the ways we can help support 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 are committed to planting thousands more trees throughout the UK, and 17 trees are saved for every tonne of paper recycled.
Once again for Christmas 2008, 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 2009, Woodland Trust card recycling boxes could be found in most M&S stores across the UK. Thanks to you, we collected nearly 9 million cards, which equates to 175 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.
This year you can help choose a site for the trees the Woodland Trust will plant... just visit www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/cards
And if you'd like some hints and tips on how to recycle your Christmas wrapping paper, trees and so on, just visit www.recyclenow.com/
Doesn’t that make Christmas even happier?
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