Tips For A Green Christmas

December 22, 2014 by Joanna Harrison

Tips For A Green Christmas

Monday 22nd December 2014

With Christmas fast-approaching ‘Recycle for Southend’ is encouraging everyone to think green over the festive period.

Throughout December and January, households across Southend-on-Sea are expected to produce around 10,000 tonnes of waste - equivalent to the weight of almost 65,000 adult reindeers and almost 1 reindeer per household!

Much of the waste produced can be recycled using the pink recycling sacks such as wrapping paper, cardboard, drinks cans, household plastic packaging and glass bottles and jars (although unfortunately not polystyrene). ‘Recycle for Southend’ is encouraging everyone to recycle their glass bottles and jars in particular this year. Glass is 100% recyclable and can be endlessly reprocessed with no loss of quality. New glass requires the equivalent of 250kg of wood to provide the heat to produce just 1 tonne of glass. It takes considerably less energy to recycle it and the energy saving of recycling just one glass bottle is enough to power a light bulb for four hours.

For many of us, Christmas is also about overindulging and in some cases this means cooking lots of food. Rarely do we gobble up all of our turkey and vegetables and it usually becomes a tasty Boxing Day pie or a sumptuous turkey and seasonal vegetable casserole. Once you’ve dreamt up every left-over turkey recipe, remember the carcass can go into your compostable food waste liner in your kitchen caddy and then into your blue food waste bin for collection.

Replacement rolls of compostable food waste liners can be requested by placing a special reusable hanger on the handle of the blue food waste collection bins. A roll of compostable food waste liners will be posted through residents' letterboxes following collection. If a replacement hanger is required, these can be collected from libraries across the borough.

Finally, once the festivities are over, please remember to recycle your real Christmas tree. These can be left at the boundary of the property, free of decorations and pot, and they will be collected within 10 working days. Alternatively, they can be taken to either of the Household Waste Recycling Centres in Stock Road, Southend-on-Sea and Leigh Marshes, Leigh-on-Sea.

Cllr Martin Terry, Executive Councillor for Public Protection, Waste and Transport, says:
“The Council and ‘Recycle for Southend’ would like to thank everyone for their great recycling efforts this year - everyone doing their little bit results in big environmental benefits. We wish you all a very happy and very green Christmas.”