Recycling on holidays - Christmas, Easter, other celebrations and Bank Holidays

Christmas 2024 and New Year 2025

If your collection day is normally on a Wednesday, due to Christmas Day and Boxing Day your bin will be emptied on Friday 27 December instead.

For New Years Day your bin will be emptied the next day, on Thursday 2 January.

If you lost your calendar, you can check the bin days online. 

Recycling on holidays

During holiday periods you are likely to end up with more things for recycling.  At Christmas and Easter people have cardboard and packaging as well as flower arrangements and Christmas trees.  At New Year and Summer Bank Holidays people might have more glass and cans. People tend to do more gardening over Bank Holidays too.

Remember, all your glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles, foil, clean food and drink cans, empty aerosols, clean food trays and pots and drinks cartons can all be recycled in your blue bin. If you have Christmas cards without glitter or embellishments you can put these in your blue bin. Unfortunately most gift wrap is not suitable for recycling due to the glitter, plastic foil and sticky tape on it. That will need to go in your green bin. Remember to try the scrunch test! If you can screw up the paper in a ball in your hand, and it does not bounce back, it can go in the blue bin.

Here are some tips to free up space in your blue bin over the festive season and other holidays:

• Flatten or squash recycling, such as cardboard and plastic bottles, before putting it in your recycling bin. You should put the tops back onto plastic bottles after squashing them to keep them flat.
• Use one of our three  Household Waste & Recycling Centres (the tips.) These accept a much wider range of items such as Christmas trees, cardboard, electrical items. Or you can simply drop off extra general waste.

We can also collect your bulky waste (there is a charge for this service). Bulky waste means things like TV units, sofas or dining tables, large items that will not fit in your bin. To request a bulky waste collection, complete a Your Local Services  online form or you can check if there are any charities that may take your items that could be reused for free.

Household Waste Recycling Centres (Tips) 

Open every day apart from Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day.  All centres will close at 4pm on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve but remember last entry times to the sites depend on your load size.

In order to have sites cleared and gates locked on the hour, last entry is:

• 15 minutes before closing for small car loads
• 30 minutes before closing for large car loads
• one hour before closing for larger vehicles with a Wastebot permit

Please bear these time restrictions in mind if attempting to visit a site late in the evening.

Please check the main Household Waste Recycling Centre pages for opening times.

Real Christmas tree recycling

Local Christmas tree recycling points are located at our 3 household waste recycling centres - you can find your nearest site here.

We are open daily apart from some bank holidays  so why not take all your items for recycling in one go? 

If you have an artificial or fake Christmas tree, you can still take this to our sites for disposal. Christmas wreaths often contain wire, mesh, string and plastics so these would not be suitable for recycling.

Please don't dump trees in lanes, car parks or on green spaces! Fly tipping is an offense. The only council-ran Christmas tree sites are at the household waste and recycling centres.

Chocolate and Biscuit Packaging

Remember to check your Easter Egg packaging and recycle as much of the cardboard as possible. Remember you can also recycle the plastic trays from eggs and chocolate boxes in your blue bin if they are not black plastic. Foil should be scrunched into a ball.

If you have any biscuit or chocolate tins, you can put those in the blue bin. You can also recycle plastic chocolate tubs.

Remember to check our A-Z of Recycling if you are not sure.

Christmas, Easter and Halloween Decorations

Decorations from  most seasons are generally not recyclable, so please do not place baubles, tinsel, garlands, foil banners and similar items in your blue bin. Use them as an opportunity to get crafty and creative instead!

You can take cardboard, scrunchable wrapping paper, light bulbs, electrical equipment and much more to the recycling sites if you wish.

Things we cannot recycle

Always check our Recycling A to Z page if you are not sure.  There are external options for recycling some of these tricky products and packaging.  You can look for drop off points in your area by checking the Terracycle website.  They work with partner companies to offer a recycling service for things like crisp packets, pet food packaging, make up wipes and much more.

Unwanted gifts and food

Sometimes we all overindulge during the festive season and buy more than we need.

If you have lots of extra food or unwanted non-perishable food like tins of biscuits or boxes of chocolates, you can donate these to local food banks.  Some supermarkets also have donation points.

People sometimes get duplicate gifts so why not donate these charity?

Religious Events and Festivals

If you have lots of extra food or unwanted non-perishable food like tins of biscuits or boxes of chocolates, you can donate these to local food banks.  Some supermarkets also have donation points.

You might also be generating more non-recyclable waste during these events, so please remember to make arrangements and plan for this. You can contact our Commercial Waste Team to make arrangements in advance. There will be charges for this service.