12 tips of Christmas Recycling
Our top 12 tips
With more waste generated in December than usual, it is definitely worthwhile reminding ourselves of what we should be recycling and why it’s so important. The 12 tips below are here to help us all to make sure we are continuing to recycle well as a district during the festive season.
1. Food waste
You can recycle turkey bones, vegetable peelings, and anything that can’t be safely eaten, as well as other food waste including tea bags and coffee grounds, eggshells, peelings and cores from fruit. Make sure it goes in your food waste caddy for recycling and not in the green bin. One caddy full of food waste can produce enough energy to power a TV for two hours.
2. Foil
Metal can be recycled again and again without losing quality, including mince pie cases and foil used in cooking that is clean. Please remember to
- Scrunch foil items before recycling them.
- Remove any food parts from foil before recycling.
- Empty and rinse foil containers.
3. Cans
Don’t forget that if you are drinking out of cans, they can be recycled. Recycling one can saves enough energy to power a vacuum cleaner for an hour.
4. Glass bottles/jars
Glass is easy to recycle and it can be recycled into new products again and again. Give empty glass bottles and jars a rinse and take them down to your local bottle bank for recycling.
5. Plastic chocolate/biscuit tubs
It takes 75 per cent less energy to make a bottle from recycled plastic than using raw materials. Most plastic can be recycled, including the big tubs of chocolates and sweets we have around the house at Christmas. Remove any wrappers first, unless of course they are now made of paper.
6. Christmas trees
Real Christmas trees are 100 per cent recyclable. Just remember to remove all decorations and lights. Residents leaving large trees out for composting are asked to cut them into pieces that are four feet tall or smaller. This makes it safe to load them into the recycling trucks. The pieces of Christmas tree can then be left next to the blue recycling bin on collection day.
Alternatively, if your Christmas tree is potted and still has its roots, you can care for them in your gardens until next year. More information regarding collection dates for Christmas trees.
7. Christmas cards and envelopes
These items can be recycled but remove any ribbons, bows, glitter or foil before putting into your recycling. It is estimated that almost a billion Christmas cards are sold each year. If all of these cards are recycled, it could save 333,000 trees.
8. Wrapping paper
Only non-foil paper will be accepted in the blue bin.
Do the scrunch test! Scrunch up the paper and if it doesn't spring back it can be recycled. Foil wrapping paper needs to be placed in the green bin.
9. Cardboard packaging
We consume more cardboard over Christmas than any other time of year. Remember to flatten boxes to save space in your blue recycling bin. Making new cardboard products from used cardboard cuts out the need for trees and the chemical treatment process. Because so much energy is conserved by recycling, cardboard takes far less effort to recycle than it does to make from scratch.
10. Broken Christmas fairy lights
Put them in a standard size carrier bag and place on top of (not in) your bins for recycling.
11. Batteries
All those new toys and gadgets mean more batteries to recycle. You can recycle most household batteries by putting them in a clear bag and placing them on the lid of your bin on your collection day. Please do not tie these to your bin or put them inside the bin.
12. Waste Wizard
You can use this tool to search if you can repair, reuse or recycle an item, whether an item can be collected by us and which bin to put it in. Visit Waste Wizard.