Turn your festive waste into woodland this January

Special card collection bins will be in place in M&S stores this month, and the retailer will fund the planting of one tree for every 1,000 cards recycled.

Last year 12.5 million cards were collected through the scheme, enabling the Woodland Trust to plant 12,500 trees throughout the UK.

Patrick Cregg, director of the Woodland Trust in Northern Ireland, says: “We’re appealing to local people to play a part, and it couldn’t be easier. With the festivities well and truly over, simply gather up your old cards and drop them off at M&S when you’re out and about shopping this January. It’s a fantastic opportunity to help turn waste, which could easily end up in landfill, into new and much-needed trees.”

Northern Ireland ranks badly as one of the least wooded countries in Europe, with just 8 per cent woodland cover, compared with the European average of 44 per cent.

To find out more about the Christmas Card Recycling Scheme, visit www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/cards

For every 1,000 cards recycled at M&S this January, one tree will be planted by the Woodland Trust in the UK in 2017.

In 2016 12.5 million cards were collected.