THE NATIONAL RECYCLING campaign Repak has estimated that around 75,000 disposable barbecues will be used in 2012. This would amount to two tonnes of aluminium going to landfill this year.

In a bid to ask people to recycle more material over the June bank holiday weekend, Repak told TheJournal.ie that Irish households recycled over 17,435 tonnes of used packaging last June. They estimate that this June:

• Over 18 million aluminium cans will be consumed
• Recycling these cans would produce enough power to run a TV for 900,000 hours or a lightbulb for 1,200,000 hours
• 20 million bottle caps will be used

There is a free Repak Recyclemore app for iPhones and Android phones which lists 99 per cent of the 2,000 recycling facilities around the country. If you get to one and it is full or closed, the GPS on your smartphone will locate the next nearest one for you.

Repak sales and marketing manager Darrell Crowe said that some of the most forgotten recyclables from barbecue season include the aluminium base of the disposable barbecues, plastic salad bowls or plastic fruit punnet trays, the steel bottle tops from beer bottles and plastic meat trays, which are fine to recycle once they are cleaned and rinsed.

Do, of course, follow Repak’s advice on recycling your disposable barbecue.

Do, however, wait until it cools down before putting it in the recycling (unlike this guy):

(via TheMeltingSnowman/Youtube)

In numbers: What we consume over Christmas>