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Opinion Why the planet needs us to cut our consumption this Christmas

Environmental campaigner Lyndsey O’Connell explains how our online festive shopping habits are leading to an excess of cardboard and plastic waste.

I’LL BE THE first to admit that when it comes to Christmas, it’s not plastic packaging I am thinking of when panic ordering gifts in Christmas week. But maybe it needs to be.

According to Repak, our online spending habits this year are set to impact the amount of waste we’re producing

Up 25% on 2019’s figures, we’re set to produce an extra 2,953 tonnes of packaging waste from online shopping this year -  the equivalent weight of 15 million standard size packages. 

It’s easy to see how. We’ve all gotten the box, within a box, wrapped in plastic, making the search for our purchases like a predictable version of pass the parcel. 

How much of this packaging could have been avoidable? Currently, there is no legislation making suppliers’ sources more sustainable packaging solutions or for overseas retailers to fund the sorting of their waste. 

According to Repak, the cost to collect and recycle packaging waste of oversea online retailers is a whopping €1m per year.

  • The Noteworthy team wants to find out if Irish recycling waste is ending up in illegal dumps abroad? Support this project here.

But it’s not just the postman delivering bad news. The overuse of packaging and Christmas waste is all around us. Our cheap Christmas jumpers are made of plastic fibres, wrapping paper is largely non-recyclable and then there is the packaging wrapped around our food. 

At 15 million tones, Ireland is one of the top plastic waste producers, and the lion’s share of that waste comes from items purchased at our supermarkets. 

Unnecessary, poor quality and single use plastic encase our food, leaking chemicals and filling up our green bins at home.

The environmental impacts of waste pollution on our oceans and rivers are well documented with estimates that by 2050, there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish.  

Polluting even as it sits of shelf

Less known, however, is the cost of plastic waste on our health. Microplastic pollution is created by the disintegration of plastic as it breaks down in the earth, during incineration, or simply leaking as it sits on a shelf, affecting every single one of us on the planet.  

According to a recent WWF report on the problem, the average person ingests around the size of a credit card worth of plastic every week. 

While experts don’t know the full extent of the long and short term health issues around plastic ingestion, we do know it is linked to obesity, cancer, hormone disruption and cardiovascular disease.

Taking steps to reduce the amount of waste we send out of our homes this Christmas can only benefit us all in the long run. But it’s not just about recycling. Where possible we need to reduce and reuse.

If you’re like me, and want to avoid making bin night an audition for a Strong Man Competition, there are a few simple waste reducing tips to lighten the load.

Watch out for plastic-based Christmas jumpers

For example, you can request less packaging from retailers at the online checkout. You could also avoid buying a cheap novelty Christmas jumper this year as they are generally made from acrylic, nylon and polyester, all of which are plastic fibres. 

If you have a fake tree, keep using it as long as possible or decorate a house plant. If however, you want to buy a real tree; a locally grown natural one is best. 

Not all wrapping paper is recyclable. Foil and glitter paper must go in the general bin. Glitter on Cards and wrapping paper mean it can’t be recycled either. Opt instead for craft brown paper, old newspaper, or glitter/plastic free paper options that can be recycled. 

If asking your in-laws to think about plastic waste makes you feel as awkward as a vegan at Christmas dinner then why not ask for something you want instead. To make sure we all get the gifts we’ll actually use don’t leave the gift buying up to chance. 

Finally, when doing your Christmas dinner food shopping, choose loose fruit and veg as much as possible and try to use zero waste stores and local butchers and fishmongers that will let you bring your own containers to fill up.

Lyndsey O’Connell is the campaign lead of the Sick of Plastic campaign to pressure industry and decision makers to take action on single use plastic.

EXOTIC WASTE Investigation

Do you want to know more about where Irish recycling and other waste end up?

The Noteworthy team wants to examine the full scale of Ireland’s waste export problem and what needs to happen here to close the waste loop, reduce our exports & kick start a new domestic sustainable industry.

Here’s how to help support this proposal>

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23 Comments
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    Mute Paul Roche
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    May 12th 2014, 8:45 PM

    The bigger they are, the slower they pay.

    148
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    Mute The Hooded Biscuit
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    May 12th 2014, 11:52 PM

    So true, got to the stage with my business where I have refused work from some large businesses who think I should be grateful, not worth it for the pain of constant chasing and chasing.

    22
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    Mute Ian Mac Eochagáin
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    May 12th 2014, 9:18 PM

    “Payment managers”? Intrum Justitia are debt collectors who use underhand methods (anonymous voicemail messages and hand-delivered notes) to chase up debtors. If everyone started paying their bills on time Intrum would go out of business.

    That’s not exactly true about Finland. Well, maybe the stats are, because people are more disciplined. Here if you forget to pay a bill (which has happened to me once or twice) it takes them a week or two to notice and then they send you a reminder.

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    Mute Jimbo
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    May 12th 2014, 8:33 PM

    Well that sucks balls.

    51
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    Mute Noble Gas
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    May 12th 2014, 8:50 PM

    We pay after 65 days – contracts says 30. Drives the Germans and French suppliers banana’s

    40
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    Mute Crocodylus Pontifex
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    May 12th 2014, 9:04 PM

    Not as bananas as that unnecessary apostrophe is driving me.

    76
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    Mute Joseph Siddall
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    May 12th 2014, 9:14 PM

    Noble Gas, …..and you’re proud of that fact ? Suppose your company don’t expect it’s customer to honour payment terms so they can take the p1ss as well. Pathetic excuse for management.

    56
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    Mute Kevin Higgins
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    May 12th 2014, 8:45 PM

    Jobs jobs jobs, FG can’t even do that right and it’s all they do. Skew figures

    39
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    Mute Gaucho Doyle
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    May 12th 2014, 10:21 PM

    Getting paid business to business in sixty days would be good in Ireland. It’s more like 90 to 120, you ask some campanys to pay you after 30 days and they look at you like you have two heads and then come up with any accounting excuse not to pay you. ‘Oh we won’t be doing a cheque run till the end of the month’, ‘One of the directors is away at the moment, so we won’t be able to issue a cheque till he’s back’ bla bla bla Then why do you order these goods and services!!!!!!!!!

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    Mute Happy Go Lucky
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    May 12th 2014, 10:45 PM

    You forgot the cheque is in the post…

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    Mute blah!
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    May 12th 2014, 9:07 PM

    Ok maybe I’m missing something, the article, in paragraph two, refers to “unpaid bills”, then further on states that for business to business, payments are made around 29 days with 14 days the norm for public sector payments. Prompt payment legislation, as far as I know, requires payment to be made within 30 days from receipt of invoice. These are not “unpaid bills” or “late or non-payment of debt”. Maybe 30 days is too long in our digital age but at least call it what it is. On time, legislatively compliant payments. Or perhaps the problem is elsewhere, lack of credit to cover the 30 day period. That would be the banks again….

    33
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    Mute Dave Mac
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    May 12th 2014, 9:48 PM

    Intrum justicas sales manager!!

    He just let slip that you don’t have to pay them!

    Idiot!

    26
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    Mute Simon O'Keeffe
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    May 12th 2014, 9:34 PM

    Doh! What do they think jobsbridge was created for.

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    Mute Patrick Linehan
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    May 12th 2014, 10:47 PM

    It’s called the Tragic Roundabout. I can’t pay A because I haven’t been paid by B who’s owed money by C.

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    Mute Lisa Saputo
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    May 12th 2014, 11:55 PM

    Are debt collectors called payment managers now?

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    Mute Christopher O Callaghan
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    May 18th 2014, 1:16 AM

    Payment managers/credit controllers/credit management advisors etc

    1
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    Mute Christopher O Callaghan
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    May 18th 2014, 1:16 AM

    Payment managers/credit controllers/credit management advisors etc

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    Mute GATHERINGYOURMONEY14
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    May 12th 2014, 11:38 PM

    The bust shmall chounthry ta doo bwisnish in.
    Because you don’t have to pay your suppliers.

    8
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