Published: 14/12/2020
COPELAND Council is asking residents to help ‘recycle right’ this Christmas.
The council is anticipating the usual rise in recycling over Christmas and while staff resources are still depleted by the pandemic, it hopes the service will continue to run smoothly.
Portfolio holder for Recycling and Waste, Coun Steven Morgan, said: “There’s a lot of waste generated at Christmas that can be recycled. Bottles and cans from family get-togethers, foil from the turkey, card from toy packaging and Christmas cards can all be put in your kerbside boxes or taken to one of our bring sites.”
Like most councils, Copeland won’t be collecting wrapping paper with your festive recycling this year.
Coun Morgan said: “For a couple of years now, we have been unable to collect wrapping paper. It is increasingly made with plastic, foil and glitter – even paper that looks relatively ‘normal’ can have these elements in it. So our recycling partner no longer accepts any wrapping paper at all. We’d ask people to put it in with their household waste or take it to the Household Waste Recycling Centre.”
The council is also asking people not to put out more card than will fit in their white bag. “This is to encourage people to flatten boxes and cut up or tear large pieces of card,” said Coun Morgan.
“This helps our lorries to take more on board before having to return to the drop off station. Sometimes we have to empty card even when the other compartments still have plenty of space. We know Christmas can mean some big boxes for some lucky people, so making them manageable like this really does help.”
Here are some other tips for Christmas recycling:
*Only recycle gift bags if they are made of plain paper or card - a foil or glittery finish can't be recycled.
*If you have brown paper from parcels, please include it with your card recycling (not paper).
*Online delivery boxes can also be taken to your nearest bring site - remember to take out any polystyrene and packing tape, and flatten it down as much as possible.
*Christmas cards - glitter and foil can't be recycled so tear off that part as well as any batteries or badges.
*Cans and bottles from the festivities can of course be recycled. Keep the metal tops on your bottles as these will be recycled too
*Aluminium food trays can be recycled, just give them a rinse.
*Those big biscuit tins and sweetie tubs can be added to your recycling
*The clean foil from your turkey can be put in your black box with cans, or taken to a bring site. Just make sure it's scrunched into a ball so that it doesn't blow away.
*Christmas trees - the most environmentally-friendly option is an artificial tree, but if you have a real one, cut it up and add it to your brown garden bin for when collections restart in the spring.
*Remember you can’t recycle wrapping paper, sticky tape, curling ribbon or stick-on bows, which are made of plastic
