Each Christmas, the landfill sees a lot of action.
In Prince Rupert, where residents pay to shed piles of waste at the dump, and have to drop off their own recycling at the depot, it’s no different.
This year, the city is asking residents to recycle solid Christmas waste and start “a new family tradition.” The wish list of recyclables includes glass jars, festive wrapping paper, cardboard and gift boxes and so on.
But we’d like to add another suggestion: save your money and the planet and skip the single-use holiday wrapping paper — use the newspaper.
After reading about your community, wrap your gifts with the pages. Create oragami bows out of the paper and colour it. There is a whole list of fun paper folding that can be done to avoid extra waste.
READ MORE: Researcher shares tips to reduce microplastics
Canadians will purchase 3,000 tonnes of foil, six million rolls of tape and 250,000 tonnes of plastic packaging over the season, according to Zero Waste Canada, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating others to help elminate waste nation wide.
Even if you only wrap three presents in reused newspaper, Zero Waste Canada estimates that if all Canadians did this it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 hockey rinks.
READ MORE: Prince Rupert Landfill upgrades to cost $9.5 million by 2018
Rupert’s landfill is already approaching its capacity, with an estimated $9.5 million upgrade to the site by the end of 2018. Let’s do our part this Christmas season and ease some of the additional waste, and feel free to use this editorial for wrapping at least one of your last-minute gift purchases.
newsroom@thenorthernview.com
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