Many people will have rubbish bins full of packaging and wrapping paper on Wednesday night and may be wondering whether any of it can be recycled.
Well, there's good and bad news - much of it can, but it'll likely involve quite a bit of effort.
Spending records aren't the only things crushed at Christmas. Landfills are inundated with packaging and wrapping paper.
If you didn't think about it - all is not lost. With a bit of effort, much of your Christmas "waste" can be recycled.
Most wrapping paper, for example, isn't rubbish.
However, ribbons and dead batteries aren't recyclable, they go in the bin.
Parul Sood of Auckland Council waste solutions told Newshub that if those items get into the recycling trucks, it can lead to fires.
Bubble wrap also can't be recycled, but Sood says you can take that to your local supermarket which has soft plastic bins.
If that's all a bit much, there's an easy rule.
"A simple way of seeing if you can put it in your recycling bin or not is if it tears easily, then you're fine," Sood says.
The sheer amount of extra waste that'll go into landfills is a lot to take in. Countdown said it expected to sell more than 850 kilometres of wrapping paper this Christmas. That's enough to lay down on the road from Whangarei to Wellington.
