A headteacher of an English primary school has banned students from sending Christmas cards out of concern for the environment.
Jonathan Mason, head of Belton Lane Primary School in Grantham, Lincolnshire, said the holiday tradition contributes to carbon emissions.
He also claimed a number of "concerned" students had approached him regarding the environmental impact of Christmas cards in the school.
"Throughout the world, we send enough cards that if we placed them alongside each other, they'd cover the world's circumference 500 times. The manufacture of Christmas cards is contributing to our ever-growing carbon emissions," Mason told parents in a letter, published by the Daily Mail.
"So in order to be environmentally friendly in school we will not be having a post box for Christmas cards from this year onwards."
He also encouraged parents to send one card to the whole class if they wished to make a holiday gesture.
"Teachers can then display the cards in the classroom for everyone to see," he wrote.
Mason has since been labelled as a "grinch" by a number of unhappy parents, claiming the headteacher had "the joy taken out of Christmas".
"Why can't all these cards be recycled anyway... these are a few Christmas cards once a year and to be told about this on a piece of paper seems contradictory," one unidentified parent told the Daily Mail.
"Telling people to stop sending cards in a letter sent out to hundreds of kids stinks of rank hypocrisy," another said.
"I hope parents boycott these Grinch-like plans and keep this tradition alive by sending lots of cards to their little pals."
Belton Lane Primary is a mixed community school for 275 students aged between four and 11.
