Image
The festive period is the busiest time of year for our crews and during last year’s festive fortnight, 519 tonnes of extra recycling was collected in North Somerset.
On the busiest day, crews collected 79 per cent more recycling than usual.
So please remember to check your calendar and put your recycling and waste out on the right day.
Check your dates on our website.
The dates change during this time to allow for bank holidays, and our crews will be out on Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 December, as well as Saturday 4 January, to catch up.
Reducing and reusing is even better than recycling.
The choices you make with your food, gifts and decorations could help save you money as well as reduce your impact on the planet.
We’ve got lots of ideas on our website.
Get tree-cycling
Donations of real Christmas are needed once again to help raise much-needed funds for local charities.
In the last five years, our successful tree-cycling scheme has raised £120,000 for local charities, repurposed and recycled 15,000 trees and saved more than 200 tonnes of carbon emissions.
Trees taken to Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm in Wraxall are chipped for land regeneration and some are donated for animal enrichment within their habitat.
Please leave trees at the collection point in the main car park during zoo opening times (10.30am to 4pm) between Thursday 2 and Sunday 26 January.
St Peter’s Hospice, headquartered in Long Ashton, will collect trees in return for a donation on Friday 10, Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 January from selected postcodes, including Backwell, Clevedon, Nailsea, Pill, Portishead, and many areas of Bristol.
Collections must be prebooked online.
Weston Hospicecare’s Pines for Pounds scheme will collect trees on Saturday 11 January in the BS22, BS23, BS24, BS25, BS26, BS27, BS29, BS40, BS49, TA8 and TA9 postcode areas.
Prebook a collection online.
All trees must have decorations and the pot removed, as some will be used for animal enrichment and the rest will be chipped for land regeneration.
Christmas trees can also be taken to one of our three household waste and recycling centres where they can be recycled with the garden waste.
For opening times and more information visit our website.
If you’re signed up to our garden waste collection service, you can also put your tree out for collection when the service restarts from Monday 13 January.
Trees can either be chopped up and put in green garden waste bins or left whole alongside the bin.
However, they must be shorter than two metres in length and have the pot and all decorations removed.
Remember, garden waste collections are monthly during December, January and February.
Think of ‘green’ gifts
Homemade or second-hand gifts can be just as thoughtful and appreciated as much as buying brand new items.
Gift experiences, such as tickets to a show, a meal, or day out, can also reduce demand on physical resources and subsequent waste.
If you do buy an item, think about what it’s made from or where it’s come from. Try to avoid single-use plastic and fast fashion, and source what you can locally to avoid a large carbon footprint.
Buying unique products from a local business rather than an internet giant will also help boost our local economy.
We can’t accept any wrapping paper in your kerbside recycling boxes so please consider this when wrapping your presents.
Wrapping paper is difficult to recycle and it’s often mixed up with unrecyclable foil, glitter, ribbon and tape.
If the amount of incorrect material is too high, the whole load is rejected by the paper mill, meaning higher costs and more transport emissions.
A popular alternative is to use plain brown paper, which can be recycled with cardboard.
Using jars, tins or other reusable baskets and gift bags are other creative ways to wrap your gifts.
Stay up-to-date
For regular updates and news throughout the year, follow our recycling and waste team on Facebook or X.
An update on the red bag recycling trial will be in next month’s e-newsletter.