Recycle your Christmas tree

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The Cotswold Blog is a collection of diary entries, news, gossip and other Cotswold related information.

Recycle your Christmas tree

As Twelfth Night looms, residents are being urged to recycle Christmas trees, cards, bottles, cans and paper accumulated over the holiday - with help from Cotswold District Council.

This year, residents can use the green garden waste bins or paper sacks, introduced by the Council in 2005, to dispose of their real trees.

Environment Portfolio Holder Cllr Sheila Jeffery said: 'All you need to do is make sure all the decorations are removed and cut the tree into 2 to 3ft sections and place in the bins or sacks so that it can be taken away for composting.'

Alternatively, trees can be shredded at home to use as a mulch or taken to the county Household Recycling Centres at Fosse Cross, near Cirencester, or Horsley, near Wotton-under-Edge.

Christmas cards can be taken to the Council's Moreton Area Centre for recycling by local cancer charity the Cobalt Appeal Fund, or to branches of W H Smith and Tesco. Last year a staggering 58 million Christmas cards were collected in Britain � one card for every person. Alternatively, cut up old Christmas cards to use as gift tags next year.

Cllr Jeffery added: 'Wrapping paper can be difficult to recycle as it's often shiny and has tape or ribbon attached. Why not keep it to use next year? Non-shiny paper can be shredded and composted at home.'

'Stamps from your cards can be cut off and saved for charity. The envelopes can go in the Council's kerbside recycling boxes, along with newspapers and magazines, glass bottles and jars, food and drinks cans, chocolate and cake tins and empty aerosol cans. Plastic bottles can be taken to recycling sites across the District.'

Cardboard boxes can be taken to the Household Recycling Centres, where there are separate containers for recycling cardboard. There are also recycling banks for aluminium foil at most of the recycling sites in Cirencester.

Finally, if Santa sent you a new mobile phone for Christmas, recycle your old one with a scheme that benefits a charity. Look out for envelopes in local shops such as Oxfam and supermarkets.

Cllr Jeffery said: 'New Year means there's no better time to start recycling � make it your first resolution to reduce your waste and recycle all year round. Why not start composting at home � subsidised bins are available to Gloucestershire residents.'

The Council's kerbside recycling scheme provides a box for every household, which is collected on a fortnightly basis. To order an extra or replacement box, call 01285 623613. Home compost bins can be ordered for only �6 including delivery by calling 0845 077 0760.

Posted : 03/01/2006 14:10:16

PLEASE NOTE: This story has been archived and the information contained within it may no longer be correct.


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