Yahoo Lifestyle Wrapping paper trick to see if you can recycle it
A recycling centre worker shared a hack to test if wrapping paper can be recycled.
Sarah Clarke, information education manager for Suffolk's recycling centres, urged families to also only buy what they needed over the festive period.
Her words came after statistics from Defra showed every Christmas, the UK population throws away approximately £42m worth of unwanted presents and 227,000 miles (365,321km) of wrapping paper is used.
Ms Clarke said: "Most wrapping paper you can recycle at home and you can do the scrunch test with wrapping paper. Most bog-standard recycling paper, if you scrunch it up it'll stay in a ball."
She added: "There's only one type of [wrapping] paper that is made from plastic that when you scrunch it, it will spring back open. That's the one you can't recycle."
Ms Clarke explained that while it was easy to throw items in landfill, families should "utilise your recycling bin as much as possible".
Paul Smith, contract manager at FCC Environment, that manages Suffolk's 11 recycling centres, said the sites were a "treasure trove" for re-usable items.
Ms Clarke said on average 30% more rubbish was produced at Christmas than any other time of the year.
She said food waste made up the largest proportion of this and encouraged people to look at Food Savvy campaign to see ways of tackling the issue.
"At Christmas especially, we get all this extra food and so much of it is thrown away," Ms Clarke continued.
"It's great to have excess stuff at Christmas when you've got family coming around but make sure you're only buying enough that you're actually going to need or if you can't, make sure you've got somewhere to store it like the freezer or fridge so it'll stay fresher for longer."
Mr Smith who has worked in the waste business for 25 years said recycling centres often had re-use shops where second-hand items, perfect for gifts, could be found.
"A very good way to describe it would be a one stop shop," he explained.
"People can bring their recycling here, they can donate items for re-use to the charity and they can also come to our re-use shop to buy exciting items for Christmas presents.
"Research shows about 85% of the UK population are happy to use second-hand materials."
Mr Smith added that at Suffolk's recycling centres, about 100,000 items were donated for re-use each year.
The two re-use shops can be found in Bury St Edmunds as well as Foxhall in Ipswich.
Funds raised in the shops then go to The Benjamin Foundation, a charity that works with young people and families in need of support across the county.
"There's a beautiful grandfather clock in the shop, there's a hand wound record player gramophone," Mr Clarke added.
"We've had everything from saddles, to mannequins, to even Le Creuset tabletop burner and pan which hadn't even been opened - it was an unwanted wedding gift and still had the wrapping paper on it."
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