Top tips for reducing festive waste

Date:  13 December 2006

Three Rivers District Council is offering some top tips for residents on the mountain of extra rubbish created over the festive season.

The waste created in the UK over Christmas would fill over 400,000 double decker buses - which would stretch from London to New York.

The Council's tips include:

• Wash and squash your plastic bottles and cans - you'll get a lot more in your recycling box.

• All the extra cardboard packaging from presents and decorations can be placed in your brown bin, although please remember to remove any plastic or polystyrene.

• All festive food scraps including the turkey carcass can go into your brown bin. Plastic bags can't go in the brown bin, but food can be wrapped in newspaper.

• Christmas cards can by recycled through the Woodland Trust at local branches of Tesco, WH Smiths and TK Maxx. Cards that are not shiny, glittery or with ribbons attached can go in the cardboard recycling containers at local Household Waste Recycling Centres.

Other top tips include buying gifts made from natural or recycling materials; giving packaging-free presents such as theatre tickets; and avoiding using wasteful paper plates and plastic cups and cutlery at festive parties. For gardeners, a composter makes a good green gift; contact WasteAware on 08457 425000.

Councillor Phil Brading, Public Services and Health portfolio holder, says:

"It's amazing how much extra rubbish we end up with over Christmas, but with a few simple steps we can reduce it drastically. Lots of what you might think of as rubbish can have another life by recycling or re-using it."

The Council's refuse and recycling collections on 27, 28 and 29 December will go ahead as normal, and the Council will collect up to two extra bags of refuse outside the wheeled bin on these dates. The collection that should be on 25 December will take place on 2 January, and the collection that should be on 26 December will be on 3 January. For these collections, the Council is asking residents to kindly limit extra rubbish to four bags.

The Council will also collect real Christmas trees; residents are asked to put these out with their brown bins on brown bin collection days.

Full details of the Council's recycling services plus all the Christmas collection arrangements can be found on the Recycling and the Refuse Collection pages or by calling 01923 776611.