Repak is asking householders to keep up Ireland’s running success of recycling this Christmas with an expected 69,000 tonnes of used packaging being generated over the period. This seasonal 30% increase on the volume of packaging including cans, bottles, boxes and wrapping equates to enough packaging to fill 2.5 million green bins or 47 kilos of packaging per household.
Repak is targeting to collect and recycle 52% of the Christmas packaging waste generated over the holiday period, an increase on last year’s achieved target of nearly 34,000 tonnes. In addition to packaging recycling householders are also encouraged to check out repak.ie for details on recycling centre opening times and other waste items from Christmas such as trees, and electronic waste.
Dr Andrew Hetherington, chief executive of Repak, says: “Remembering to recycle the small, unusual and additional packaging items this year will make a huge difference in avoiding a giant Christmas celebrations environmental hangover. As the extreme weather conditions are playing havoc with recycling collections nationwide, we are urging people to be patient with the recycling collections. We ask people to bear with contractors and local authorities and where possible to store up there extra used packaging for recycling later when the collection infrastructure is under less strain.”