Dreaming of a ‘Green’ Christmas?

As Christmas approaches The Highland Council is asking people to give some thought to how they can make theirs a ‘Green’ one.

We all produce more waste at Christmas but it is worth considering how we can reduce that waste, and save ourselves some money at the same time.

Apparently one third of us admit to wasting more food at Christmas (only one third?). We all tend to panic-buy at Christmas so try to plan your Christmas food shopping carefully to avoid waste. This Christmas, a whopping 800,000 turkeys will be sold in Scotland, weighing a massive 4, 4000 tonnes - that’s equivalent to the same weight as 49,000 Santa’s!  Why not visit www.scotland.lovefoodhatewaste.com for lots of tasty leftover turkey recipes and ideas on how to make meals using other leftovers?

One handy tip for you to try over the next week - use up food in your freezer.  This will not only save you money and time in the busy build up to Christmas but it will also create space to freeze those Christmas leftovers.

If you live in Inverness you can use your weekly food waste collection to save space (and smells) in your refuse bin. You will also be helping the environment by preventing all that organic material rotting in landfill sites and giving off climate changing methane. But make sure you aren’t wasting your money by throwing away perfectly usable food. 

On average, each Scottish household splashes out £25 for Christmas decorations each year, that’s more than £60 million in total!  Why not consider swapping decorations with your friends and stash your cash instead.

A prickly 680,000 Christmas trees will be bought this year in Scotland, most of which will be thrown away generating over 13,000 tonnes of additional rubbish - that's the same weight as over 42,000 reindeer!  So once  the needles start to drop, take your real tree to your local Recycling Centre to recycle in the garden waste skip. Please be aware that there are no facilities to recycle artificial trees at Recycling Centres although old Christmas tree lights can be recycled in the small electrical goods container.

Another way to save space in your refuse bin is to make sure you use your blue bin to recycle all your paper, cardboard, tin cans and plastic bottles.  If your normal refuse or recycling collection day falls on 25th December, your bin will be emptied on Saturday 21st December. Over New Year if your bin would have been emptied on Wednesday 1st January it will be collected on Saturday 28th December; and if your collection day should be Thursday 2nd January, your bin will be emptied on Saturday 4th January.

Glass bottles and jars and any excess paper and cans can be taken to your local Recycling Point while extra cardboard and plastic bottles plus all that other stuff from your pre or post-Christmas clear out can be taken to your nearest Recycling Centre. Recycling Centres are open throughout the Christmas period except Christmas Day and 1st, 2nd January. Check The Highland Council website http://www.highland.gov.uk/recycle.htm for full details of opening hours and for the full range of material accepted.

It looks like the weather is going to be mild over the Christmas period so if you can’t have a White Christmas, make sure you have a Green one!