Wrapping up the Christmas mess... Ireland expected to generate 97,000 tonnes of packaging waste this Christmas

While there will be those who are glad to see the back of this festive season, for most hopefully, Christmas brought the celebrations wished for and Santa was as generous as he could be with the gifts.

With the reindeer trails in the cold December sky evaporated and the presents all unwrapped, the clean up begins and not just the turkey leftovers.

Ireland is expected to generate 97,000 tonnes of packaging waste this Christmas new research reveals - a four per cent increase on last year's figures.

That's 97,000 tonnes of cardboard casing, plastic inserts, soft plastics, wrapping paper, bows and bags amongst other things that now need to be disposed of.

According to the research by Repak - an environmental not-for-profit set up in 1997 to help businesses meet their obligations to recycle the packaging waste they place into the Irish market - most Irish shoppers would buy more sustainable and eco-conscious gifts it were not for the need to focus on value and price.

- 93 per cent of shoppers in Ireland receive Christmas gifts each year that they don’t use.

- 68 per cent would spend more on sustainable gifts, however shoppers prioritise price (42 per cent) and value (19 per cent) over recyclable gifts (12 per cent) when buying Christmas presents.

- 83 per cent plan to reduce their consumption this Christmas, with shoppers doing so by buying locally (68 per cent), reducing the volume of presents they buy (49 per cent) and buying sustainable gifts (42 per cent).

Despite this, 29 per cent still plan to buy between 6-9 Christmas gifts, and 31 per cent between 10-15 presents.

Some positive news is also reflected in that 72 per cent plan to be more conscious of their waste generation this Christmas period and of those, 46 per cent will reuse wrapping paper from other occasions for their festive gifts.

In the absence of a more sustainable way to drastically reduce the unnecessary over-reliance on plastic and cardboard packaging people need to make that extra effort to ensure that all the discarded wrapping is properly and meaningfully recycled. According to Repak, 25 per cent of contamination in recycling waste comes from domestic bins.

The organisation is asking the public to ‘re-imagine’ their perception of plastic and recycle correctly and help reach Ireland’s EU target to recycle 50 per cent of all plastics by 2025.

Ireland currently recycles 31 per cent of all plastics, but that needs to increase to 50 per cent by 2025 under EU Legislation. Learning what items can and cannot be recycled, and putting all recyclable packaging waste, including all plastics, into the recycling bin clean, dry and loose is what everyone in Ireland must do as a minimum to reach the 50 per cent target. More information can be found at repak.ie/team-green.

CEO of Repak, Séamus Clancy summed it up well: "It is now widely recognised that a linear economy of take – make – dispose is no longer sustainable. We can all make a big difference every day by recycling our packaging correctly, clean, dry and loose."

Hopefully, by taking the time to carefully recycle this year and opt for more sustainable gifting options going forward we can make Santa's sleigh all the lighter next year.