Speaking to letsrecycle.com while gearing up for the festivities, authorities around the UK stressed the importance of effective campaigns to avoid drowning in Christmas rubbish.
 Nottinghamshire and its contractor Veolia have been among those getting the recycling message out over Christmas (left to right: Mick Allen of Notts CC; Veolia's Simon Bussell; Erin McDaid of the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust and Barry Mason of Sherwood Pines Forest Park) |
However, Lee Marshall, chair of the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee, warned that a balance had to be struck between a flurry of communications material specific to Christmas and confusing residents about collections during the rest of the year.
Mr Marshall said: “Communications about the problems of recycling cards with glitter may make people think twice about recycling undecorated card throughout the remainder of the year.”
Mr Marshall, who is a recycling officer for Powys county council, explained that there was a danger that councils could appear to have a “bah humbug” attitude when encouraging residents to reduce their waste, but hoped it would get to the stage where people would realise that what they bought had an affect on the amount of Christmas waste in the bins.
He said: “This can be by using recyclable paper and avoiding gift wrapping loaded with sellotape and ribbons which are harder to recycle and render the paper of lesser quality to paper merchants.”
“Second nature”
In Daventry council, waste management officer Jane Mc Dowell stressed that getting the message through the people about waste reduction and recycling was vital at Christmas. Like increasing numbers of UK councils, Ms Mc Dowell's authority operates an alternate weekly collection system.
She said: “It is key to make residents so familiar with the system so it becomes second nature to them and removing any chance of confusion.”
In other parts of the country, such as Eastleigh and Telford and Wrekin, officers have adopted further methods to increase recycling and manage surges in waste by up to a third.
Some councils are accepting side waste over the festive week, while others, which run alternate weekly refuse collections, will change this service to weekly, and put stickers on bins to alert residents of new collection times.
Trees
One of the key recycling campaigns now moving centre stage in many authorities this year is to get householders recycling their old Christmas trees.
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In Nottinghamshire, the council has teamed up with contractor Veolia, the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust and the Forestry Commission to encourage householders to raise money for charity by recycling Christmas trees.
Simon Bussell, managing director of Veolia Environmental Services (Nottinghamshire), said: “People love real trees in their homes at Christmas, but it’s important to think of environmentally friendly ways of disposing of them when the fun is over.”
From all of us at letsrecycle.com, we wish all our readers a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
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