In Dorset, we produce over 220,000 tonnes of household waste every year, enough to fill half a car full of rubbish per person. With the government setting new recycling targets for local councils and with an ever growing environmentally friendly society, are Christmas crackers a complete waste?

With Britain alone pulling an incredible 300 million crackers every Christmas, it is certainly a cracking business to be in. Many people every year refuse to buy crackers for Christmas as they believe they are just a waste.

Kim Lam, 51, who has been running a local company in Ferndown called ‘Celebration Crackers’ with her husband Sam for about seven years disagrees. “I do hate waste, however it is a tradition, it does make everyone laugh, it brings everyone together as well as being a great ice breaker,” Kim explains.

On entering the factory, it’s like Santa’s workshop, just without the elves. The piles of different coloured materials are stacked around the whole room, in what seems to be, an organised mess.

The tiny office is crammed with hundreds of different customised crackers, from miniature to large, you could spend hours looking through them all and not get bored, it's like a child's dream come true. Giant cardboard boxes are stacked throughout the factory labelled with names such as Selfridges and Stella McCartney, illustrating just how successful their handmade crackers are.

The Christmas cracker was invented by an English baker, Tom Smith in 1847. Since then the invention - traditionally filled with a paper crown, cheesy joke and tacky toy - has graced Christmas dinner tables all over Britain. If, however, you're looking for something a touch more sophisticated this year, the bespoke crackers they provide are ideal.

Kim makes sure every gift is useful, filling the unique crackers with items such as little games, mini perfume bottles and beautiful different shaped silver key rings. She most certainly doesn’t want people to just throw away the gifts with their post-Christmas clear out. Demand is naturally mainly seasonal, but the business is busy all year round with the staff working incredibly hard.

The factory record stands at 70 crackers an hour but an average worker can create about 40 an hour. Kim explains that organisation is key, along with the ability to use resources effectively, making sure there is no unnecessary waste.

Emma, 36, who works in the Celebration Crackers factory on the production line, shares the same opinion as Kim. She says, “they’re always so much fun and never fail to bring the whole family together. What’s not to like about them? People should stop being scrooge at Christmas!”

Many would agree with her thinking that surely for special occasions crackers are a good treat to have for the whole family?

“They are very fiddly to make but I really enjoy putting together the hundreds of different designs. I believe we give that extra magic touch that other cracker companies just don’t have,” Emma revealed.

Working with local schools, Kim regularly gives them the offcuts that can’t be reused in the factory for the children to use in their arts and craft lessons. Bows, ribbons and lots of different funky materials are the main items given to the schools, giving the opportunity for children to be creative with things that are used in a professional industry, but at the same time recycling the materials, ensuring they do not go to waste.

Debbie, 47, a local customer of Celebration Crackers, expresses her views on them.

“To a certain extent I agree that crackers are a waste, but only if you buy the cheaper ones that come with useless gifts inside that everyone throws in the bin straight away,” she explains.

This is why she is one of Kim’s regular customers, Debbie would rather pay slightly more for personalised, good quality crackers with gifts that people can use and keep. She goes on to say, “you just can’t not have them at Christmas, it’s a British tradition and we should be supporting our local businesses.”

Of course, recycling is a huge part of trying to save the environment, and with their main waste being paper and cardboard, Celebration Crackers most certainly do their bit.

Kim says, “We hope that people take the initiative to recycle their used crackers after the Christmas period, then we know that we’ve all enjoyed ourselves but done our bit for the environment as well.”

With their largest order being about 30,000 crackers, recycling is a huge factor in making sure that the new year starts off with an environmentally friendly bang.

One of their main eco-friendly customers, Daylesford, pride themselves in using British artisan suppliers and share their commitment to quality and sustainability.

The crackers are individually designed using recycled paper with images of winter animals and landscape from Daylesford farm. They contain packets of seeds, mini garden twine with wooden marker, mini whisk, mini tumbler, slinky and mini pencil set, which are all practical gifts.

This is a huge contrast to one of Kim’s more affluent clientele. Stella McCartney ordered hundreds of crackers to promote her lingerie, wanting every cracker to be filled with seven pairs of knickers in a beautiful cream box.

The demanding size of the box meant Kim had to measure out a different template specially for these crackers - very time consuming, but well worth it. “I think it’s a beautiful thing and arguably more useful than miniature screwdrivers,” Kim says jokingly.

Although a lot of material went into the making of these crackers, the majority of it is recyclable. Stella McCartney’s British company does ensure that all the underwear is made from organic cotton and is ethically produced. The end result was magnificent, the cracker measured 2ft long and sold for £130 in Selfridges.

Crackers aren’t just for pulling at Christmas. They can be used all year round for promotional reasons, getting your message and gift across or birthdays and parties. Virgin decided they wanted to use them for promotional reasons, wanting to attract people’s attention - they certainly achieved that.

Using them for thousands of University Fresher students, positive that the gifts inside would not go to waste, they decided to fill each cracker with condoms, keeping the students safe, but most importantly making sure they were talked about.

Crackers are sustainable and can be 100% recyclable. Maybe we do not have to kill the spirit of Christmas and can continue the long standing British tradition which has graced our dinner tables for 65 years.

By Dana Millard