This Christmas, Repak is encouraging Irish households and businesses to recycle smarter.
Whether it’s rinsing a foil tray after dinner or ensuring a yoghurt pot is free from food residue, these small, everyday actions play a vital role in helping Ireland achieve its ambitious recycling targets.
Tips for recycling smarter:
Clean, Dry, and Loose: These are the golden rules for recycling. Rinse containers, let them dry, and avoid putting recyclables in plastic bags.
What Goes Where: Paper, cardboard, plastics, and metals are recyclable, but watch out for contaminants like food residue or mixed materials (e.g., bubble-lined envelopes).
Local Recycling Centres: For items like glass, batteries, and electronics, bring them to civic amenity sites instead of your household bin.
Make It a Family Affair: Post a simple recycling guide in your kitchen and encourage accountability across all household members.
Christmas Recycling Tips
Quite simply, there are three categories of materials: paper and cardboard; plastics; and metals, tins and foil. These are the different types of packaging items that can go in your recycling bin – clean, dry and loose.
Remember, while most varieties of wrapping paper and gift cards can go in the recycling bin, glitter and sellotape can not. Glitters and metallic shapes used in gift wrap can make it non-recyclable.
Likewise, tinsel cannot be recycled due to its metallic content.
The plastic trays layered in your tins of biscuits, chocolates and mince pies can all go in the recycling bin - but they must be wiped down first.
The plastic wrapping holding the bread for your many, many Christmas sandwiches can go in the recycling bin - but the crumbs can't.
Bubble wrap and packaging boxes can be recycled. Be sure to remove any adhesives (sellotape and labels) and pack them away clean, dry and loose.
Visit Repak.ie for more tips, recycling guides, and to take your pledge to recycle better in 2025.
