It might not have been a white Christmas, but Cumbrians did their best to make it a green one by sending more than 2,000 environmentally-friendly greetings cards over the festive season.
Resource Cumbria - the strategic waste partnership between the county council and six district councils - teamed up with CN Group to encourage residents across Cumbria to slash the number of Christmas cards going to waste by giving out season's greetings in an electronic (E-card) rather than in the more traditional format.
People were urged to log on to www.ecards.cngroup.co.uk (external link) (external link) to select a card, type a personal message and then simply send it to the recipient's email address completely free of charge.
Altogether a grand total of 2,089 E-cards were sent in this fashion - saving an amount of paper roughly equivalent to 2.5 mature trees.
Martin Allman, Cumbria County Council's waste prevention manager, said: "To have a final number of more than 2,000 E-cards is a pretty good effort and it shows people are really starting to think about the impact traditional Christmas cards have on the environment.
"Hopefully each year more and more E-cards are going to be sent - especially as they save people money as well as being environmentally friendly - and next Christmas we'll see people sending each other an even bigger number of E-cards."
Resource Cumbria is also in discussions to develop non-season specific E-cards for birthdays, anniversaries and special events.
For details on how to recycle Christmas cards call the Resource Cumbria helpline on 0845 055 1118 or visit www.resourcecumbria.org (external link)
