The city council is encouraging Edinburgh residents to recycle as much of their Christmas waste as possible this festive season.
To make it easy to recycle food, packaging, tins and glass during the holiday period there will be no changes to kerbside waste and recycling collection dates.
All households will be able to put their grey and green wheelie bins, food waste bins and red and blue boxes out as usual, including on Monday 26 December, Tuesday 27 December, Monday 2 January and Tuesday 3 January.
Communal bin collections will largely be unaffected although additional collections for glass and packaging may be made to deal with increased volumes, if required.
Christmas Tree recycling
Residents across the city will be able to recycle real Christmas trees, which will be collected by the Council and turned into compost.
Those with a brown bin should place their tree on the kerbside by 6am on their next garden waste collection day (collection days can be checked online).
Residents in communal areas who use on-street shared bins can put their tree on the pavement outside their property on designated collection dates during January – these can be checked on the Council website.
Christmas trees can also be recycled at any of the Community Recycling Centres. The sites will be closed 25, 26 December and 1, 2 January.
To enable trees to be recycled, residents are reminded:
– To remove all decorations from the Christmas tree
– To remove stands from trees
– To cut the tree in half if is 6ft tall or more
– Not to place trees in plastic bags, which means they cannot be recycled
Transport and Environment Convener, Councillor Lesley Hinds, said: “It is with thanks to the efforts of staff working over the festive period that we are able to continue waste collections with no break, which I’m sure will be welcomed by all households.
“There’s no doubt that the amount of rubbish we throw out increases at this time of year – from wrapping paper to leftover food. It’s important to remember that much of this can be recycled so make sure you make use of recycling bins over Christmas and New Year.
“Last year we saw an 8% increase in recycling over the festive period compared to the year before, with a 7.5% drop in the amount of waste sent to landfill. It’s clear people are already making a real effort so we want to make preparing for, enjoying and clearing up after Christmas as easy as possible.”
Waste and recycling collections may be subject to change in the event of severe weather. For more information on what to do if services are disrupted due to bad weather, visit the Council’s severe weather pages.
Full festive waste arrangements are available on the Council website.
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