Christmas recycling and composting tips

Date:  14 December 2010

In the run up to Christmas

• Get your kids involved in the household recycling routine while they’re on Christmas holidays. It’s a great educational activity

• When you go to do your big Christmas shop at the supermarket, you could take any recycling that’s not collected from home with you

• Why not look out for items containing recycled material as gifts this Christmas? Goods containing some recycled material will make the perfect ‘green’ gift this Christmas

• Look out for gifts with packaging that can be reused or recycled easily. Gift bags for example can be reused again and again

Over the festive period

• A whole range of jars - from cranberry sauce to mincemeat and baby food - can all be recycled: just give them a rinse and they’ll be ready to recycle with your other glass. Don't worry about removing labels; they will come off in the recycling process
 
• If you’re having visitors over Christmas, you could let your guests know where your recycling bins are and what goes in them

• Remember there are lots of unexpected Christmas items you can recycle or even reuse like chocolate tins and mince meat jars
 
• The wire ties that often accompany gift packaging are not generally recyclable, so they could be kept aside and reused as garden ties

When the festivities are over

• Why not think about donating any of your unwanted items to charities. Many will also take your unwanted, working electricals (please check before hand)

• Don’t forget that you can recycle your old Christmas cards. The Woodland Trust is once again collecting cards for recycling from some high street stores, enabling the Trust to plant thousands of trees every year

• Alternatively, you could give some of your Christmas cards a new lease of life by cutting up some of the more attractive cards to make gift tags for next Christmas

For more details on refuse and recycling in Three Rivers over the Christmas period visit the Rubbish, Waste and Recycling pages of our website.

Sign up to receive our Environment News e-newsletter or follow us on twitter @threeriversdc for regular updates on refuse collections over the winter period.