Now that Christmas is over you perhaps want to recycle all your old wrapping paper and cards. However, what most people don't realize is that most wrapping paper is of too poorer quality to be recycled, and to compound things it's usually covered in sticky tape, foil, glitter, etc. Wrapping paper is only suitable for recycling if it is pure paper and passes the "scrunch" test - where it can be scrunched up like a sheet of printer paper or similar and doesn't open up again, but even then all foil, glitter, bows, etc. will need to be removed. However, unless you've paid quite a lot of money for your wrapping paper then it's unlikely to be of good enough quality to be recycled and will have to go into general waste.
Christmas cards and their envelopes can usually be recycled, but again all foil, glitter and anything else on them that aren't paper based will need to be removed. Unfortunately a lot of Christmas cards will not be of good enough quality to be recycled.
Wrapped presents and Christmas cards might be nice to receive but we can all help the environment by looking at other ways to wrap our presents next Christmas, and to explore electronic means of sending Christmas greetings by text, social media or email rather than sending cards. That may sound like BAH HUMBUG, but many people simply do not appreciate the environmenal impact of Christmas!
