Give your green bins a good stuffing this Christmas

Orkney Islands Council’s waste team are encouraging local householders to make full use of their green recycling bins and local recycling centres this Christmas.

Traditionally, the OIC deals with a huge increase in waste after the Christmas break.

Last year, the two weeks up to Christmas Eve saw 27 dustcart loads being deposited at Chinglebraes, while the two weeks after Christmas resulted in 37 loads.

With the additional cost of processing and transporting the waste to Shetland, this extra tonnage equated to approximately £10,000.

Due to the extra waste created during the festive period, householders are asked to remember to recycle their cans, bottles, thin card and real Christmas trees, using the local recycling centres for any waste that cannot fit into the bins and containers already provided to householders.

Orkney’s five Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) will be open during the festive period – you can find a full list of opening hours here.

Some of the top tips from the OIC waste team are:

• Recycle as much as you can – recycle all your glass bottles and jars (whatever the colour), drinks and food cans, rinsed tin foil, Christmas wrapping paper (not the fancy foil type) and any card from those gifts from Santa. Remember, only thin card can be put in your green bin. Thicker card such as that used in the majority of packaging needs to be saved up and taken to the Recycling Centre.
• Baubles cannot be recycled – they are made from different types of plastic so if you have broken baubles, please wrap these in something and put them into your normal household rubbish bin.
• Your broken fairy lights can be recycled – Fairy lights not survived their time in storage?  If you can’t fix them, bring them along to your local recycling centre where they can be placed in the electrical items (WEEE) area.
• Have the council pick up your Christmas tree – Did you know, over eight million real Christmas trees will be bought this year in Britain, the majority of which will be thrown away generating 160,000 tonnes of additional waste, which equates to 21 times the weight of the Eiffel tower.  You can compost your Christmas tree, or buy a pot bought one and re-plant it after Christmas or alternatively please make use of the council’s free Christmas tree collection service (30mph limits only) – details on this will be advertised shortly.
• Recycle your Christmas cards – most Christmas cards, other than the glittery ones can be put in your recycling bins. You could save them for a craft project and some charities also offer a Christmas card recycling facility.