The alcohol consumed in Ireland this Christmas would fill "29 Olympic-sized swimming pools", a recycling agency has claimed.
Repak says the average adult would drink almost 16 litres of alcohol - "2½ times their own blood levels" - at home over the Christmas and new year period.
The agency made the comments during an appeal to consumers to cut down on waste and recycle as much packaging as possible over the next 10 days.
The typical Irish household collects more than the weight of an average adult in packaging at Christmas, according to Repak. which estimates the total amount produced at 95,000 tonnes.
The figure includes more than 130 million containers, suitable for recycling but much of which could end up in landfill sites.
A more thoughtful approach by consumers would benefit the environment while also saving people money, said Repak chief executive Andrew Hetherington.
"As this is the first Christmas since pay-by-weight and pay- by-use has been introduced, Irish householders could save up to €44 million from their Christmas waste bill by recycling their used packaging," Mr Hetherington said.
Repak has established 90 special "green Christmas centres" around the State to deal with the extra material, with extended opening hours. Details of locations and times are available at www.repak.ie.
The agency is offering advice on how to reduce waste during the remainder of the Christmas and new year holiday.
Tips include treating your Christmas tree "like a cut flower", watering regularly and avoiding over-exposure to light and heat. This may help to prevent the tree from shedding needles before its disposal.
Details of tree recycling centres are also available from the website.
This is the fifth year of the Repak Green Christmas Campaign, which the agency claims helped to increase waste recycling from 14,500 tonnes after Christmas 2003 to almost 18,000 tonnes last year.
Waste material recovered last Christmas included 25 million drinks cans, 11 million food cans and 32 million glass bottles.
Repak is a not-for-profit recycling scheme which was set up under an agreement between industry and the Department of the Environment.
Christmas waste: by the numbers
54 million aluminium beer cans
15 million beer bottles
20 million wine bottles
2.6 million spirit bottles
4 million plastic soft drink bottles
28 million aluminium soft drink cans
4 million cardboard chocolate boxes
2.6 million cardboard toy boxes
4 million sheets of wrapping paper
