Published: Monday, 17th December 2018

Tis the season to be recycling once Santa's been and gone, along with the festive food and drink.

It's important for us all to continue to protect the environment during the festive season. We want to make recycling easier, so here are some useful tips to help us keep on making the borough a cleaner and greener place.

There will be some changes to collections over Christmas and New Year.

Recycling tips

At Christmas, we use enough card packaging to cover Big Ben nearly 260,000 times.

Cards and wrapping paper that are glittery or metallic can't be recycled, so reuse them or put them in your general waste (black top) bin.

Try the scrunch test

  • Try the wrapping paper scrunch test: if you scrunch it and it bounces back, it can't be recycled. If it stays scrunched, put it in your blue top bin!
  • Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to power a TV for four hours - that means you could watch the Snowman back to back more than eight times!
  • If everyone in the UK recycled just one more plastic bottle over Christmas it would stop nearly 400 cars worth of CO2 getting into our atmosphere.
  • Recycle six mince pie foil cases and save enough energy to watch EastEnders on Christmas Day.
  • Don't forget! All recycling must be clean and free of food residue

Lose the plastic bag, leave it loose

There has been a lot in the news about the harm single-use plastic does to the planet, so we have made a commitment to reducing the amount of single-use plastic that is used. You can also help by putting your recycling in the bin loose instead of bagging it up in a plastic bag.

Not only is this kinder to the environment but also gives you more space in the bin, helps us see and remove what shouldn't be in there and makes it easier to sort.

Try using a separate reusable container or bag to collect your recycling in your home. When it's full, all of your recycling can be easily tipped into the blue bin. Please do not use plastic carrier bags - re-use them or take them to a supermarket to be recycled.

Branching out

We will take your real Christmas tree as part of your weekly collection.

Remove all decorations - those baubles can live to hang another year!

Place the tree outside the front your home before 6am - not in your green bin.

If you don't have a green waste collection, we will still collect your tree. If you live in a block or estate with communal bins, leave it by the bin store - not in the bins!

And don't forget - recycling is for life, not just for Christmas!