Somerset Waste Partnership
Briefing for Members, Partners and Staff
November 2021
Festive recycling’s when and where The festive fortnight always means changes to collections and recycling sites.
Check the days and dates in the picture – perhaps keep it on your fridge or noticeboard – for Christmas and New Year changes, and note the annual suspension of garden waste pick-ups. In South Somerset and Taunton Deane, the printed Recycle More calendars will also show these details, and all the changes are on the My Collection Day online calendar at somersetwaste.gov.uk
(tip: postcode gap AB12 3CD). To have all the containers you need for festive recycling, order via My Waste Services at somersetwaste.gov.uk. Recycle sites stay on their usual weekly schedules but all sites close on three days: Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. Two sites have one-off extra days open: Dulverton on Monday 27 December and Crewkerne on Tuesday 28 December.
Christmas or Wastefest? You choose. Here are simple steps to avoid a mess of excess and create a simpler celebration focused on family and the future. Clear now. Avoid the Christmas trash jam and what it can cause: missed collections. Get tidy today with recycle
boxes and your local recycling site to be ready early for internet delivery waste and not get caught out of “panic wasting”.
Be a better giver. Insist on wish lists, invest in real quality that lasts, look forward by giving digital subscriptions and experience vouchers, buy local to help your community (with less plastic and cardboard packaging) and use real paper wrapping – not metallic or plastic – that can actually be recycled. Eat early, feast well. For the best festive food, make sure you buy what you need and so eat all you buy. Have a holidays meal plan, check your stocks before shopping with a list, eat into the freezer and fridge first to make space, and use up all those lovely leftovers.
DIY those decorations. And use anything but plastic. Winter foliage and decorations of paper and card – especially home-made – look great, and for the tree, make baubles that recycle anything from buttons to old family photos. Front door wreath: homemade with branches, evergreen leaves, dried fruit, and all manner of odds and ends.
PS: Want your Christmas and New Year recycling and rubbish taken?
Please “park smart” so your collection crews and their trucks can get through.
What to do with your real tree Fake fir or a real green tree? Tradition and – unless using the fake for many years – your carbon footprint says go real for that Christmas centrepiece.
Aside from using it in your wildlife corner or chipping it to add to your compost bin, your tree can be dropped off at any recycle site. Garden waste subscribers can leave their tree – up to six feet with decorations removed – out for their first collection in 2022.
And, for a donation, there are now two Somerset charity tree collections. Around Frome, Shepton Mallet, Wells and elsewhere, Dorothy House Hospice Care will collect trees from BA3, BA4, BA11, BA12, BA13, BA14 and beyond.
Search for “Christmas tree” at dorothyhouse.org.uk for details. Around Bridgwater, Taunton,
Wellington, Yeovil and elsewhere, St Margaret’s Hospice Care will collect trees from TA1, TA2, BA20, BA21 and parts of TA3, TA4, TA5, TA6, TA21 and BA22. To book, search for “Christmas tree” at st-margarets-hospice.org.uk.
Recycle More heads for final phase Now successfully up and running in Taunton Deane as well as Mendip and South Somerset, Recycle More’s final stage will be the roll-out in Sedgemoor and West Somerset in early 2022. Check somersetwaste.gov.uk/recycle-more
for the latest news and updates.
Somerset Waste Board SWP’s governing body has two members from each partner council:
Mendip Cllrs Peter Goater, Tom Ronan;
Sedgemoor Cllrs Andrew Gilling, Janet Keen;
Somerset County Cllrs David Hall, Clare Paul (Vice-Chair); Somerset West
and Taunton Cllrs David Mansell, Andrew Sully;
South Somerset Cllrs
Sarah Dyke (Chair), Tim Kerley. SWB agendas:
somersetwaste.gov.uk/somerset-waste-board
Information on SWP services
somersetwaste.gov.uk for advice and ezine sign-up.
Follow @Somersetwaste on social media.
SWP manages waste services for all Somerset councils.