Christmas is almost here; can you believe it? It is the most wonderful time of the year and it is my favourite Holiday Season. Aussie Christmas is not the same as in other parts of the world. Here, Christmas comes in summer, Santa doesn’t need to wear a jacket, and people sing Christmas carols on the beach, not in the snow. But we do have one thing in common: The Christmas Spirit.
Source: www.wwf.org.au
Part of this spirit is giving gifts. I buy lot of gifts for family and friends during Christmas and New Year. However, I never considered the massive amount of waste that is generated during Christmas. Did you know that over 5 million tonnes of festive leftovers and packaging end up in Australian landfills every year in December alone?
The problem doesn’t lie in celebrating the festive season, but within the misleading information regarding what can be recycled and what cannot.
Here’s how you can make this Christmas and Boxing Day more environmentally friendly and help reduce our landfills.
Know the difference...
Christmas plastic waste can be sorted into 3 categories:
· Landfill
· Compost
· Recycling
According to National Storage, Aussie’s collectively spend around $11 billion on Christmas presents every year. Out of this, an average of $20 million worth of gifts are unwanted. The question here is, where do these unwanted gifts go? Shockingly, many end up in landfills.
Here are some horrifying statistics from National Storage about Christmas waste:
1. About 250,000 tonnes of plastic packaging are generated, most of which cannot be recycled
2. Every year waste increases by 30% during Christmas.
3. More than 150,000 km of wrapping paper is used every year, which is enough to wrap the Earth’s equator 4 times
On top of waste from gifts, there are many Christmas decorations which can’t be recycled, including LED lights, foil and plastic wrapping. Artificial Christmas trees are commonly dumped in landfills as well.
Source: www.ebay.com.au
These facts are shocking. While some unwanted gifts are re-gifted, we have a bigger problem here.
What can we do to help?
We together can help reduce the amount of landfill each year by:
· Avoid buying plastic goods
· Choosing 100% recycled plastic wrapping paper
· Re-gifting and recycling, instead of throwing away
There’s a lot we can do to drastically reduce the number of gifts and gifts packing. All it takes is one step and a desire to protect our environment and our planet.
We can make a big impact this Christmas. Let’s celebrate Christmas by avoiding plastic products or at least by using recyclable plastic only.
Please join our movement: https://www.remadeinaustralia.com.au/ and
Please sign the petition: http://chng.it/CCVj5GjxJP
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