Christmas recycling and waste information

If your Christmas lights are broken and can’t be repaired, you can recycle them. Electrical items contain valuable materials like copper.

To upgrade an electrical item like a mobile phone or tablet, you can buy a preloved device rather than a new one and also resell, donate or recycle your unwanted devices. Visit the Donate It website or The Nerd Herd for local options.

To recycle small electrical items (about the size of a kettle) from home, place them in a loosely tied bag on the top of your recycling box. You can also take items of any size to the recycling centre the next time you go.

Last Christmas, an extra 47 tonnes of food waste was collected in the week following Christmas Day compared with a normal week. That's a lot of money going into your food waste box. 

To cut down on food waste, try to follow these tips this Christmas:

• check what you already have in your kitchen before you do your Christmas food shop
• try to avoid over-shopping before Christmas, most shops are only closed on bank holidays 
• plan ahead by thinking about the space you have to store the foods you’re going to buy, and use up older items first
• make use of your freezer to help cater for unexpected guests and for freezing food if you have a change of plan
• visit the Love Food Hate Waste website for recipes to use up leftover food. Simply type in what you have left and see what it suggests
• use any plastic bag to line your food waste caddy then tie the top and place in your food waste bin

We start seeing an increase of cardboard from November as online orders for Black Friday and Cyber Monday drive up deliveries. To help reduce cardboard recycling, you can:

• reduce deliveries by ordering items all together
• reuse cardboard boxes or offer them to others for reuse
• flatten unwanted boxes down so they fit in your recycling box
• if you have a lot of cardboard, put a little extra out each week to ensure crews can collect from everyone

Waste-free gifts include:

• experiences
• memberships
• your time
• upcycling
• buy second hand
• homemade
• buy ethical

Unwanted gifts can be re-gifted or donated afterwards.

Artificial trees need to be used around 10 years for them to be have the same impact on the environment as getting a real one each year. 

Garden Waste

Residents signed up to the garden waste collection service can put their real trees out for recycling on their first collection day following Monday 13 January 2025.

Either chop up your tree to put in green garden waste bins or leave whole alongside the bin. They must not be more than two metres in length. All decorations and the pot must be removed.

All residents can also recycle their Christmas tree at the nearest recycling centre. 

Composting your tree

If you want to compost your tree, shred it to chippings first or cut it into small pieces. Trees are tough and resilient and if left whole will take ages to break down.

Take advantage of slow-to-rot needles by sprinkling them on a muddy path. You can also use the bare trees to make habitat for wildlife in your garden.

Unfortunately we are not able to recycle wrapping paper. That's because the materials that go into making many types of wrapping paper can't be accepted by the processors for recycling.

Put wrapping paper in your general waste or choose a more eco-friendly alternative instead, such as:

• brown paper 
• fabric - bring colour to your presents. Scarves, tea towels, handkerchiefs, bandanas, or large napkins could be used. Wrap objects in various shapes by learning the traditional Japanese cloth-folding technique known as furoshiki
• old maps or newspaper
• jars, tins or gift bags 
• baskets 
• children's artwork
• re-use packaging

If you have lots of extra recycling from the Christmas period, keep some back for your next collection. You can also use your nearest recycling centre.

Sort your recycling to keep the materials separate. You can either use an extra recycling box or place into separate loosely tied bags. Leave neatly by your boxes.

A small amount of extra card will be collected if it’s flattened and broken down to the size of your recycling box and placed next to your boxes. Please remove any inserts and as much sticky tape as possible.

For crew safety, put all glass in your recycling box and make sure it is visible.

Put out your bins and boxes by 6.30am on your normal collection day and report any missed collections as normal.

To cope with the larger volumes of recycling over the festive period, we sometimes use different collection vehicles. Although the vehicle may have changed, the recycling will still be separated and processed as normal.