$520 million worth of unwanted presents reported in Australia

Here at 1 Million Women, we've been giving you tips on how to give more heartfelt, experience based and/or useful gifts this festive season. Post Christmas research has shown that this year Australians have accumulated up to $520 million in unwanted gifts!

Canberra Times Reports:

Few would have a greater mountain of unwanted Christmas gifts to climb than primary school teacher Kathleen Bevis, who splits her time between four Christmas's and one "Friendsmas" each year.

"There has been some absolute shockers," Bevis, 30, said.

"Last year I got a Mariah Carey perfume that smelt like feet and lollies. Then there was the perpetually re-filling beer that lights up. It was the most annoying thing – it looked like there was always cold beer but you couldn't drink it."

The survey suggested Australians received up to 20.3 million unwanted gifts in 2014, up from 14.2 million in 2013.

New South Wales residents are the worst gift-givers in the country, spending more than $190 million on unwanted gifts in 2014.

But is it because we are buying more of the wrong gifts for the wrong people, or the practice of re-gifting has become more visible?

An American Express survey from December reported that 76 per cent of Americans found re-gifting acceptable now.

It is a trend that has been echoed in Sydney. "It's definitely becoming more widespread," Ms Bevis said.

"Rather than just throwing them away, it is far better to give it to someone who might get to use it. That way, at least the effort of getting the gift hasn't been wasted."

If you have been a recipient of unwanted Christmas gift(s), don't just throw it away! Join the sharing economy and give your items a new life on Tushare!

Just click here to share and receive items for free!

Over 4 trillion kgs of waste is sent to landfill each year. Much of this consists of clothes, toys & books. Imagine the positive impact if we shared, instead of throwing away. If a million women each reused just 1 kilogram of clothing (approx 4 dresses) we would save 1 million kgs of landfill, save approx 10 billion litres of water, prevent 8 million kgs of CO2 pollution going into the atmosphere & collectively save millions of dollars!