RecycleNow Urges Holiday Makers to Get On-board and Recycle Their Brochures

Recycle Now, the national recycling campaign for England, is issuing a reminder urging all holidaymakers to recycle their used holiday brochures instead of binning them and sending them to landfill

Last year 45 million holidays abroad where taken from the UK¹ and considering that for every holiday sold four brochures are produced², a staggering total of around 180 million brochures are being distributed each year – which, if placed end to end would stretch from London to Sydney three times³!

One of the busiest times of the year when consumers pick up their new holiday brochures is August and September to start looking for next year’s holiday. This is also the time when they start thinking of disposing of last year’s brochures now that the summer is nearly over. With this in mind, Recycle Now has teamed up with the UK’s leading independent charity for sustainable tourism and travel, The Travel Foundation, to encourage consumers to remember to recycle their old holiday brochures.

Sue Hurdle, Chief Executive of The Travel Foundation said:

"The Travel Foundation is delighted to support Recycle Now in its call to holidaymakers to recycle those old holiday brochures rather than binning them. It's another link in the chain of reducing the negative impact of travel and if we all recycle, it will make a big difference."

Many tour operators are becoming more aware of their environmental responsibilities and are recycling their old brochures.

Jane Ashton, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at First Choice said:

"At First Choice we recycle our excess brochures within the business, and are working on cutting down the paper we use.  We very much encourage our customers to recycle their holiday brochures at home - everything we can do together to recycle paper helps the environment."

Top ‘green’ solutions for old holiday brochures

Recycle Now has provided some simple tips to help holidaymakers find the best ‘green’ solutions for dealing with their old holiday brochures:

• When finished with them put the brochures in your kerbside recycling collection or take them to your local recycling centre;
• Browse and book your holiday online to save paper;
• Pass your used brochures to family, friends or neighbours so they can use them instead of getting new ones;
• Contact local playschools to see if they would be interested in taking the magazines to use for creative projects.

Amanda Barry Hirst, Head of Public Relations at Recycle Now said:

“People often take numerous brochures from their travel agents to find their ideal holiday, but many don’t know what to do with them once they are out of date. It’s now easier than ever to book online but if you do need to pick up a brochure then think how it can be recycled or reused once finished. The simplest is for holidaymakers to take advantage of their easy and convenient doorstep recycling service or drop them off at their nearest recycling centre.  But it is also worth considering alternatives such as passing them on or using them for children’s creative projects.”

For further information on recycling, please visit www.recyclenow.com.

Editors Notes 

^{1 & 2} ABTA

³ Working out carried out using the average length of a holiday brochure as 29cm and 1 mile = 1609.344 metres

45 million holidays x 4 = 180 million

29cm x 180 million brochures = 5,220,000,000cm

5,220,000,000cm / 100cm = 52,200,000metres

52,200,000 metres / 1609.344 metres = 32,435.57 miles

Distance from London to Sydney, Australia = 10,600 miles

32,436 miles / 10,600 miles = 3

RecycleNow

Launched by Sir Matthew Pinsent in September 2004, Recycle Now is the multi-media national recycling campaign, implemented and managed by WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) on behalf of Government. The aim of the campaign is to encourage more people to recycle more stuff, more often.

WRAP

1. WRAP works in partnership to encourage and enable businesses and consumers to be more efficient in their use of materials and recycle more things more often. This helps to minimize landfill, reduce carbon emissions and improve our environment.
2. Established as a not-for-profit company in 2000, WRAP is backed by Government funding from Defra and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
3. Working in seven key areas (Construction, Retail, Manufacturing, Organics, Business Growth, Behavioural Change, and Local Authority Support), WRAP’s work focuses on market development and support to drive forward recycling and materials resource efficiency within these sectors, as well as wider communications and awareness activities including the multi-media national Recycle Now campaign for England.
4. More information on all of WRAP’s programmes can be found at www.wrap.org.uk and for more details on the Recycle Now campaign visit www.recyclenow.com