Recycle your Christmas

After all the fun and excitement of Christmas we are all left with a lot of extra waste through wrapping paper, food and unwanted gifts which can potentially be turned into recycling.

The amount of wrapping paper estimated to be thrown away in the UK at Christmas could stretch around the equator nine times and could easily be reduced with some small changes to make a big difference.

In Wiltshire there are many ways to recycle Christmas waste and Wiltshire Council has provided some information on how to best to recycle during this festive period. Some of the information will vary depending on which part of the county people live in.

* Christmas trees can be taken to any of our ten household recycling centres (HRC).  They will be taken to our central composting facility.  They can also be placed into garden waste recycling bins, but please chop them down to fit in the bin.

* Wrapping paper can be put into your usual recycling for collection.  Additional plastic bags or boxes can be filled with wrapping paper if necessary and the council will happily recycle it.

* Woodland Trust are running a scheme from January 2 to 31 in which people can take all their unwanted Christmas cards to WH Smith, TK Maxx and Marks & Spencer. Woodland Trust will recycle them and plant 1,000s of trees.

* Food waste can be a thing of the past - for interesting leftovers recipes from some of the nation's top chefs check http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/.

* Unwanted gifts need not go to waste as one person’s waste is another’s treasure. Many charity shops would benefit from them, or they could be given away at http://www.freecycle.org/. Freecycle or Freegle (http://www.ilovefreegle.org/) will advertise unwanted gifts for free and someone else can benefit from them.

* Waste electrical and electronic equipment can be taken to local HRCs.

* Around 600 million (22,000 tonnes) household batteries are sent to landfill in the UK unnecessarily every year. These can now be taken to your nearest HRC to be recycled.

HRCs are easy and convenient to use. They are open Monday to Sunday 9am to 4pm (Salisbury open until 6pm) from November 1 to March 31. To find out more, including where they are in the county, people can log onto www.wiltshire.gov.uk/recycling.

Over the Christmas period the HRCs will only be closed on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, all day Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day.