You know Christmas is coming when a flurry of festively-coloured envelopes start whizzing through the letter box.
And choosing, writing and posting out Christmas cards is part and parcel of the holiday season – in addition to complaining about the seemingly ever-growing cost of stamps.
While it’s wonderful to give and receive Christmas cards, it’s also wise to think about what you’ll do with them afterwards.
But now that January has rolled about, where do you put all the lovely Christmas cards now that festivities are wrapping up (if you don’t like to keep them that is)?
In the bin? Hopefully not. As many can quite easily be recycled, meaning the paper will be repurposed.
Here’s how to recycle them yourself.
Can you recycle Christmas cards?
You can certainly recycle most Christmas cards, confirms RecycleNow.
If it’s made entirely out of paper, you’ll be fine. Happily, you can also recycle paper envelopes that cards come in.
However, if the card has any sort of glitter, foil, ribbon or decoration attached, you’ll need to remove that part.
Glitter and ribbon in particular are not suitable for recycling – so those bits belong in your regular rubbish.
Likewise, if you’ve got a singing card, the battery bit needs to taken out before you recycle at home. (Batteries should be recycled at designated battery recycling points.)
How to recycle Christmas cards in the UK
So, you’ve determined your Christmas cards are suitable for recycling. But how do you go about it?
It can be as straightforward as popping them all in in your green recycling bin. They’ll be collected as normal.
You can choose to keep them permanently, which means they’re not languishing as waste in a landfill. Though after a few years, you might have quite the pile!
If you’d prefer to, you can head to a household waste recycling centre and drop them off there.
Some supermarkets also have collection banks for different types of recycling.
Where can you recycle Christmas cards?
The easiest way to recycle Christmas cards is, again, to put them with the rest of your recycling.
If you’d rather drop them off with a huge amount of recycling too big for the average bin – you can find your local household waste recycling centre quite easily.
Pop your postcode into the Recycle Now website to be directed to the address of the closest site.
It’ll tell you how far away it is (in miles) – plus detail what kinds of items they accept. This bit’s important.
For some, it’ll just be textile products (i.e. clothes), for others, only electrical items (i.e. appliances). However, if you’re near a larger centre, they might accept paper, plastics and other items.
Finally, if you want to know what you can recycle at your local supermarket’s collection point, use the same link above.
Or ask in store to see what options are available to you.
MORE : 23 things you didn’t know you could recycle
MORE : Can you recycle wrapping paper in the UK? A eco-friendly guide
MORE : Most common recycled items that aren’t actually recyclable
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