Christmas produces an estimated 3 million tonnes of waste in the UK, 30% more waste than the rest of the year. Last year, 300 tonnes of extra waste was produced over Christmas in Southwark, so it is important to recycle as much as possible and cut down on your waste this festive period.
Top tips to watch your ‘waste-line’
Christmas Trees
Around 25,000 hectares of Christmas trees are currently growing in the UK – that’s over twice the size of the City of Manchester. Old Christmas trees can either be placed out for collection (stripped of any pot and decorations) for those that have a food and garden waste service or taken to a collection site at Belair Park, Peckham Rye Park, Southwark Park or the Reuse and Recycling Centre on Devon Street. We will be putting collection bins at the three parks from 2 January to 1 February 2016.
Love Food, Hate Waste
This Christmas, a whopping 10 million turkeys will be sold in the UK, weighing a massive 55,000 tonnes – that’s equivalent to more than 620,000 Santas weighing an average of 14 stone each. Make sure you visit the Love Food Hate Waste website for portion planning, great Christmas leftover recipes and storage tips.
Reuse and waste minimisation
There are lots of simple ways to reduce your waste - make gift tags from old greetings cards and send Christmas e-cards. We have provided more waste minimisation tips to help residents this Christmas on the Southwark Council website.
Fabrice Bouchon, General Manager for Veolia Southwark, said: ‘With an extra 500 million drink cans alone used over Christmas in the UK, it is important to recycle as much as we can and try to minimise the amount of waste we produce.’
Councillor Darren Merrill, Cabinet Member for Recycling and Environment, said: “We’re all guilty of producing a little more waste than usual over the festive season. To help keep Southwark a greener place to live, I would urge residents to reduce, re-use and recycle as much as possible.”
Over Christmas there may be collection day changes for both your refuse and recycling services. Check the table below to see if your collections will be affected.
Collection day changes across the borough:
| Festive collection day changes 2015 | |
| If your normal collection day is: | All changes highlighted below |
| Christmas Day - Friday 25 December | Sunday 27 December |
| Monday 28 December | Normal collection |
| Tuesday 29 December | Normal collection |
| Wednesday 30 December | Normal collection |
| Thursday 31 December | Normal collection |
| New Year’s Day - Friday 1 January | Saturday 2 January |
| Collections return to normal on Monday 4 January 2016 | |