Local Kingston residents are being encouraged to show some festive goodwill and do their bit for the environment by recycling their old cards for the Woodland Trust.
 
The Trust’s Christmas Card Recycling Scheme will run from the 2nd to the 31st of January. Residents can drop off their celebration cards at special bins in Marks and Spencers, WHSmiths and TKMaxx stores in Kingston town centre.
 
Chris Hickman, spokesman for The Woodland Trust said: “The UK has four times less trees and wood than anywhere else in Europe, so by recycling your Christmas cards directly with the Woodlands Trust you are helping us to plant more new native trees and rectify this inequality.”
 
The Trust aims to plant 12,000 trees across the UK with the money raised through recycling and donations. The location of the trees will be decided by the public through votes on the Trust’s website.
 
Lisa Stewart, Marketeer of Plan A, Marks and Spencers said: “The scheme has been very successful so far. Last year we collected 9 million cards, and we are set to improve on that this year. People like recycling but they want it to be made easier. They can just do it as their shopping.”
 
The Scheme has received very positive feedback from local residents. Student Daniel Millward said: “I think this is a great idea, it is so simple and easy for us to do, yet it’s making such a big difference to the world we live in.”
 
The Trust has been running the scheme for over twelve years and since then more than 60 million cards have been recycled and have planted more than 141,000 trees, saved over 12,000 tonnes of paper from landfill and stopped over 16,000 tonnes of CO2 from going into the atmosphere.