Looking after the environment: Christmas time is often accompanied with a lot of waste. Find out what items you can throw in what bins this festive season.
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Gift-giving and good food are two staples of the festive season, but with it comes a lot of waste.
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The News has put together a list of what to look out for when disposing of your waste over the Christmas break.
Christmas wrapping paper
One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding Christmas waste is that all wrapping paper is recyclable.
Often, wrapping paper is dyed or laminated and can contain gold, silver, metallic materials, glitter and plastics that cannot be recycled.
Paper with these materials on it must go to landfill.
If you’re yet to wrap your gifts this year, maybe opt for 100 per cent paper products which can be put in recycling.
Sticky tape is also not recyclable, so try to separate tape off your wrapping paper before placing each material in its designated bin.
Plastic packaging
When it comes to gift giving, a lot of products still come wrapped in plastic.
Some of this plastic can be recycled, and some must go to landfill.
The easiest way to tell if a plastic product can be recycled is to check the recycling number symbols on the bottom of the plastic.
These appear in a small recyclable triangle symbol – anything with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 can be recycled.
If it’s anything else, it must go in the red bin.
Often, toys can come in plastic moulded packaging surrounded by cardboard.
Check to see if that plastic is recyclable – if it doesn’t say what type of plastic it is, separate the two materials, placing the plastic in landfill and the cardboard in recycling.
Batteries and electronics
Neither batteries nor electronics can be placed in your curbside recycling or landfill bin, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be recycled.
Many battery types can contain toxic metals, and throwing them into landfill means it can contaminate any soil or groundwater.
Putting them in the recycling bin is a no-go too, as certain batteries can be hazardous and produce sparks, igniting a fire in the trucks or recycling facility.
You can take your batteries to retailers such as Officeworks, Battery World, Bunnings, Coles and Woolworths, who offer recycling for batteries and other small electronics like mobile phones and chargers.
Before recycling your batteries, place some sticky tape around the battery terminal (positive and negative charge), as dead batteries can still have some leftover charge.
Doing this can prevent fires in the recycling process.
Larger electronics must be taken down to your closest resource recovery centre.
This also includes those pesky fairy lights that no longer work – don’t throw them in your curbside bins.
Check out below which bins other Christmas-related waste goes into.
Bin collections
Bin collections will not take place on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
Instead, for two weeks starting from December 26, bin collection will take place a day late.
So, place your bins outside the day after your usual collection day – this also includes those whose bins are collected on a Friday. For those two weeks, bin collections will take place from Tuesday to Saturday.
Resource Recovery Centres will be closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year’s Day and only open from 9am to 2.45pm on Christmas Eve.
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