According to Gumtree (December 2021), 28,000 tonnes of household items were sent directly to landfill in the last two years*. That's the equivalent of seven double-decker buses per each council in England. That's a lot of sofas, desks, beds and chairs that could have been listed on Gumtree.

With tonnes of unwanted christmas presents and thousands of returns which cannot be resold (for any reason) sent to landfills, it is time to rethink Christmas gifts. Short on cash and buying presents that nobody wants, then don’t waste your money. Use your creative skills to ‘make’ something. Remember that christmas is about family time. And so, forget the commercial part of it. Focus on a nutritious, healthy, yet decadent dinner and focus on being together. There are no other more important moments like this in our lives today. We need each other and we need each other now to combat the state of fear installed by fake news and bad government restrictions that are powered by the same forces that want you to burn your cash over the ‘joyful’ season, and run into more debts, and be more stressed, and be more sick as a result — and having your gifts sent to landfill, polluting and scaring the environment for thousands of years to come (some chemicals are known to be indestructible and some of their gaseous release too, which have now accumulated to dangerous levels in the atmosphere — the air we breathe all day and all night).

Do you feel as passionately as we do about reducing waste and carbon emissions? Do you believe that the second-hand, circular economy should form a larger part of the national and international net zero strategy? Of course you do!

Together we can tackle waste and build a culture of re-commerce and responsible retail!

*Freedom of Information Request. Requested English council data recordings between 2019-2021 as per above timeframes listed. https://www.gumtree.com/info/life/p/life-advice/reduce-reuse-recycle-how-do-englands-councils-measure-up