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A seal looks to consume his Christmas goodies in Sydney, Australia today.
# recycling
In numbers: what we consume over Christmas
Fifty million cans of beer, 22 million bottles of wine, four million boxes of chocolates – Repak says recycling can ease the guilt.
CHRISTMAS IS THE season of excess and although some of us will not want to think about what we are consuming this week, Repak has laid out all of our holiday habits.
From wrapping presents to drinking wine, celebratory acts create household waste – 220,000 tonnes of it to be exact.
Here’s what the recycling group predicts will happen over the next 12 days:
22 million – bottles of wine will be drunk
50.6 million – beer cans will be consumed
20 million – soft drink cans will have to be disposed of
50.5 million – beer bottles will be necked
39 million – fizzy drinks bottles will be emptied
4 million - boxes of chocolates will be scoffed
And in each household:
40 - litres of alcohol that will be consumed
58 - litres of soft drinks will be drank
3 - kilos of chocolates will be eaten
750 - grams of wrapping paper that will be thrown away
8 – kilos of glass packaging used
12 – kilos of plastic waste
150 - kilos of household waste will be generated
Overall, enough packaging to fill 2.7 million green recycling bins will be produced over the holiday period.
Recycling during the coming days could avoid 40,000 tonnes of carbon, say Repak. This equates to taking 26,000 cars off the road.
Last year, 34,000 tonnes of used packaging was recovered by Repak over Christmas and it is hoping to better that figure this year.
A new app for smartphones has been launch by Repak to provide information about recycling centre opening times and locations, as well as materials accepted. The Recyclemore app can be found on iTunes or Android Market.
Other handy tips provided by the group are available on the website www.repak.ie. Here’s one we didn’t know at TheJournal.ie - sellotape is recyclable so no need to spend time picking it off your wrapping paper!
