THE Christmas episode of TV’s Dragons’ Den will feature a Poole woman on a mission to make wrapping paper reusable.

As the Daily Echo reported last year, Seattle-raised Mary Ann Dujardin was a packaging designer who decided she had been “designing garbage”.

She launched Rethinkwrap as a way of reusing wrapping repeatedly before it is eventually recycled.

She will be seen on Sunday seeking investment from the BBC series’ “dragons”, including Deborah Meaden, Peter Jones and Sara Davies – but it is not known how the episode turns out.

The BBC said: “With a little help from Santa, American entrepreneur Mary Ann sets out to convince the toughest investors in the business that her product is the alternative to gift wrap waste.

"Her pitch leads to revelations from the dragons about their family Christmases – but will it also lead to a deal?”

Mary Ann pointed out to the Echo last year that the UK throws away 226,800 miles of wrapping paper each year – enough to stretch nine times around the Earth.

Rethinkwrap can be used multiple times and recycled when it eventually reaches the end of its life. It comes in six colours and is packed in a tin.

She said she tried to find eco-friendly solutions during her time as a packaging designer for brands such as Bonmarche.

“I have witnessed on dreary January mornings thousands of my lovingly designed seasonal shopping bags and gift wrap unceremoniously heaped into a dumpster,” she said.

“It dawned on me that I’ve spent a sizeable amount of my time on Earth literally designing garbage.”

She grew up surrounded by the evergreen trees of the Pacific Northwest and remembers her first sight of a forest completely cleared of trees. “I thought the decimated forest must’ve been cut down by a crazed monster on a giant lawnmower – but, as we drove past, my friend’s dad said dryly ‘Trees are for making paper’,” she recalled.

The Christmas episode of Dragons’ Den goes out on Sunday, December 22, 8pm, on BBC Two.