Yuletide savings

As everyone knows Christmas can be a time of excess. When it comes to waste, however, Herefordshire Council has bags of help at hand – purple, clear and black -- for all those households on the ‘kerbside’ recycling collection scheme, and the ‘bring’ sites that stay open throughout the holiday.

Wrapping paper (excluding the very metallic kind), greetings cards and thin cardboard boxes can all go in the purple bag; drinks cans and plastic bottles (excluding the brown ones) can go in the clear bag; vegetable peelings etc into the composter if you have one (and if not why not?); turkey/goose bones etc can go into a green cone; and finally the very much reduced ‘real’ waste can go into the black refuse bag.

Ribbons and bows can be saved for use again, as can greetings cards if there is a local charity willing to take them. Christmas trees can go the Household Waste Sites -- these are open every day except Christmas Day (for opening hours ring 01386 443376).

All glass bottles (and we expect there’ll be plenty of these) can go to the local bring sites (60+ across the County), and many of these have other ‘banks’ for things such as heavy cardboard as well. Most bring sites are ‘open all hours’ (but please avoid ‘night-time noise’).

Andrew Tector, Head of Environmental Health & Trading Standards, said: “Christmas, when a wealth of waste is generated by the very nature of the festivities, is an ideal time to begin to think about recycling lots and throwing away less.

“If people are included in the ‘kerbside’ scheme but have not yet participated, now is a good time to start.

“Bring banks are also extremely useful at this time of year, but I would just add that if they should be full on your arrival please try again another time, don’t just dump the recyclables alongside the banks.

“For ‘real’ waste, changes in refuse collections will be kept to a minimum and these are shown on the Council’s website (www.herefordshire.gov.uk) and printed in the local newspapers.”

For those households receiving the ‘kerbside’ scheme the 2004 calendars will be delivered as soon as possible in January. Until then people are asked to ‘project’ the weeks forward from the 2003 calendar.