Recycling over the festive period

What do with waste and recycling over Christmas.

Recycling centres opening hours

Our recycling centres are open 8am to 5pm throughout the year but are closed over the festive period:

Christmas Day
Boxing Day
New Years Day

Sites close early at 3pm on:

Christmas Eve
New Years Eve

Planning your visit

If you're visiting before or after the festivities, get organised before you visit by keeping your recyclables separate, as these can go loose into the skips.

If you know your site well, load your car (or cargo bike) in the right order to match the site layout.

Festive recycling

While decorating you may find that some items no longer work or are broken. Items like fairy lights and electricals could be repaired or brought to a Repair Café.

Broken electrical items and other waste we produce more of over the festive period, such as real Christmas trees, batteries and food waste can all be recycled.

Our waste wizard tool allows you to search for any item to find out how it can be correctly recycled or disposed of.

Christmas trees

If you bought a real tree with roots, you can keep it potted or replant in your garden to reuse next year. After your celebrations, remove the decorations and lights from and recycle it either

through your local district council’s kerbside service or drop off points, depending on where you live
or you can drop them off at any Oxfordshire recycling centre.

Artificial trees are also accepted at the recycling centres - check with site staff to see which bin to use. If it's still in good condition, the best thing to do is donate it, give it away or sell it.

Electricals and batteries

If you have an electrical item that you no longer need or batteries that have used up their charge you can recycle small electrical items and batteries at the kerbside. They are normally collected from alongside or on top of your bin – do not place inside any of your wheelie bins. Larger electrical items will require a booked bulky waste collection.

Our waste wizard tool gives you details about collections based on your postcode, including; in-store take back schemes, recycling points at supermarkets and the location of your nearest recycling centre where you can recycle any household electrical item.

Food waste recycling

All food is worth saving, but if you do have unavoidable food waste, most households have a weekly kerbside recycling collection for food waste. Your district council operates this collection service.

Reducing your food waste

The average household of four could prevent £1,000 worth of edible food from being thrown away each year.

We've teamed up with Replenish to help share ideas on how residents can save money and food, by following the four steps; Plan, Shop, Store and Eat.

Ideas for a low waste Christmas

At this time of year, we can spend a lot of time, money and resources decorating our houses, dressing up and wrapping gifts. Sometimes this is money we can’t afford and finding ways to reduce our impact on the environment can ensure we have a greener celebration as well as saving money.

Decorations

Paper decorations are fun for crafting and affordable as a friendly family activity. Can you repurpose some cards or paper and create some paper garlands or paper trees to give your home a homely feel this year?

Festive clothing

De-bobble your Christmas and winter jumpers and give them a new lease of life.

You can easily do this yourself while listening to a podcast or watching your favourite TV show.

Saving you money on buying new and the water and resources which would have gone into producing your new jumper.

Gift wrapping

If you’re wrapping presents, why not wrap your gifts in newspaper? And cut up greeting cards from last year to make gift tags? It's fun choosing a page with an interesting photo on, and once the gift is opened, the newspaper can go straight into your recycling bin to be turned back into something else.

If you buy wrapping paper, avoid foil or glittery paper, as this can't be recycled.

Giving, regifting and donating

Giving

Most people love to give and receive gifts, but unwanted gifts are a waste of money and resources. Think carefully about what your friends and family may really want and enjoy.

You don’t have to buy new. How about something personal or hand-made? Consider homemade jams, chutneys, biscuits or treats, vintage or preloved homeware, or second-hand books or records. Or why not buy an experience or a day out rather than a thing?

Regifting and donating

After the big day, if you have something that you really can’t use or don’t want, consider regifting to someone who may appreciate it, or donate it to a charity shop.