When it comes to print, Christmas sees some of the biggest volumes of work coming across your business. Whether your customers are stocking up on seasonal marketing print or looking for Christmas cards and wrapping essentials, you can be sure that a lot of it will probably end up not being recycled or is un-recyclable, either way, most will make its way to landfill. At Route 1 Print we want to break binning habits and help you and your customers find exciting ways to re-use un-recyclable print. In this blog, we’ll cover how you can recycle your seasonal print and make the most of the products that aren’t recyclable!

Wrapping paper

Did you know? Consumers in the UK use 227,000 miles of wrapping paper each year – over 83km2 of this ends up in bins. With our range of wrapping paper, you can easily order exactly how many sheets you need, to help avoid waste. Our wrapping paper is also printed on FSC™ (Forest Stewardship Council™) stocks that can easily be recycled after use. If you don’t want to send your wrapping paper to be recycled, you can always reuse it in other ways. Cut it up to make Christmas decorations, avoid using Sellotape and reuse it for wrapping again, or shred it and use it to fill hampers and presents.

Christmas cards

On average, the typical person discards 24 Christmas cards once the festive period is over, that’s a lot of waste! Often these Christmas cards feature some form of embellishment, which also renders them un-recyclable. Christmas cards can however easily be reused. Cut out the foiled areas or festive designs and keep them for scrapbooking, creating gift tags or making your own handmade Christmas cards. Alternatively, your customers could consider more sustainable options such as creative stocks like kraft or gold dust, that are recyclable but still stand out! Don’t forget to recycle your envelopes too.

Christmas party print

When we think party, we also think print, but have you ever considered how much of it goes to waste? For products such as reserved signs, roller banners, welcome posters, selfie frames, and PVC banners, avoiding adding a date like ‘Christmas 2022’, this is a great way to ensure that the print is reusable for the next year! For menus and drink lists, why not suggest a winter or seasonal theme without leaning too heavily on Christmas, this way they can be used before Christmas and into the New Year.

Only order what you need! It can be easy to order more ‘just in case’ but a lot of overprints simply end up being binned. Make sure your customers know their exact quantities to avoid over-printing. Instead of handing out individual disposable menus, you can always opt for tent cards, table talkers or strut cards, one per table for everyone to see!

Christmas marketing essentials

We understand that Christmas is a time for luxurious and indulgent print and avoiding embellishment sometimes simply isn’t an option. However, thinking about how you use it can certainly help you and your customers do their bit for the environment. If you’re building a catalogue or booklet, for example, you can foil the cover to add a touch of luxury but remind your customers to remove the covers after use and recycle the inners. This way, the whole booklet won’t end up in landfill!

Have you checked out our recycled range? Most of our Christmas print essentials can be created using our 100% recycled stock giving a new lease of life to old print items, that can also be recycled again after being printed with your design, win-win! Check out our blog How to Sell Recycled Products to discover more about the range and how you can sell them to your customers this season.