Green Christmas Links

[Chris P]

IRISH LINKS:

Recycling during the Holiday Season - Some Tips from Repak:

http://www.repak.ie/bring_banks.html

http://www.repak.ie/Green_Christmas_2006.html



Christmas Gifts from “Cultivate” (Temple Bar, Dublin):

http://www.sustainable.ie/cultivate/xmas_gifts.htm

Ecoshop (Kilmacanogue, Co. Wicklow):

http://www.ecoshop.ie/


UK LINKS:

Dreaming of a Green Christmas (from Friends of the Earth):

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_..._15112005.html


New Year Resolutions (from Friends of the Earth):

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_..._08122006.html


OTHER:

The history of Santa Claus (from Wikipedia):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus

[Chris P]

"Key Green Christmas Facts"

Of packaging waste alone, it is estimated that the increased consumer activity [at Christmas] generates an additional 80,000 tonnes of waste or 170 million used packaging containers. This is equivalent to -

• 20 million wine bottles

• 48 million aluminium beer cans

• 35 million soft drinks cans

• 13 million beer bottles

• 45 million plastic drinks bottles

• 2.5 million spirit bottles

• 4 million cardboard sweet boxes

• 2.5 million cardboard toy boxes

• 4 million rolls of wrapping paper.


• Recycling just one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60 watt bulb for 6 hours

• It takes just 25 two litre plastic beverage bottles to make one adult size fleece jacket

• Each household will have generated circa 60 kilos of used packaging or 82,000 tonnes of packaging will have been consumed over the Christmas period

• Repak are targeting to collect and recycle 40% of the Christmas packaging waste generated over the holiday period. This is equivalent to 23 kilos per household or 32,000 tonnes of used packaging

• Last year, Repak recycled nearly 29,000 tonnes of used packaging, which was 67% up on the previous year

• In terms of volume, the 44 million litres of alcohol we will have consumed at Christmas, is enough liquid to fill 29 Olympic sized swimming pools

• If all the glass wine and beer bottles were laid out end-to-end, the resulting tower would stretch from Ireland to Sri Lanka, a distance of over 9,000 kilometres

• 23,000 tonnes of cardboard and paper packaging alone is generated, the weight of nearly 4,000 elephants

• If all the wrapping paper was laid out side-by-side, it would cover an area of 89 kilometres by 89 kilometres, which is enough to cover half the size of Leinster.

• Last year, Repak Green Christmas helped to grow packaging recycling to nearly 29,000 tonnes in December 05/January 06, compared to 17,000 tonnes the previous year - an increase of over 65% on the same period in the previous year or 9,000 tonnes over the target tonnages of 20,000 tonnes.

Source: http://www.enviro-solutions.com/news-recycling.htm