The Christmas recycling guide

Before you recycle your real Christmas tree,  you need to remove all decorations such as baubles, fairy lights and tinsel.

Find out how you can recycle your Christmas tree at home.

Not all wrapping paper is actually paper. Some is made with plastic or foil. To check if it can be recycled, try the scrunch test. If you can scrunch the paper into a ball and it stays scrunched, you can recycle it.

Fridge full of Christmas dinner leftovers?  Try one of these tasty recipes to use up all of your cheese, turkey and all those veggies.

Before recycling your cardboard boxes, take out all plastic packaging, bubble wrap and polystyrene. They are all made with plastic and can’t be recycled, so put them in your general waste bin.

Squash your boxes to save valuable space in your bin.

Let’s be honest, we’ve all received a gift at some point that just isn’t what you want or need. Luckily, there are loads of things you can do with unwanted gifts to make sure they aren’t wasted!

Have you just unpacked last year’s decorations to find your fairy lights don’t work anymore?

Christmas tree lights, wires, cables and other electrical items can’t go in any of your bins at home.

You can recycle them to your local  Recycling Centre.

It’s that odd time of year between Christmas and New Year. It’s the end of the year, a time of reflection and for many of us, a time to sort out of all that stuff from Christmas. Lots of it can be recycled or reused but where to start?

Cards and wrapping paper with glitter can’t be recycled. This is because glitter is made from plastic and can’t be separated out from the paper and card fibres during the recycling process.

As well as shampoo bottles and shower gel bottles from the bathroom you can also recycle deodorant cans, glass perfume bottles and face cream jars from the bedroom.

Find out what else you can recycle at home.

Batteries are essential, especially if you expecting to receive gadgets and toys this Christmas. Plan ahead and invest in some reusable batteries. They’re better for the planet and your pocket.

If you do have some dead batteries, you can recycle them at most supermarkets and electrical shops.

More and more people in Greater Manchester are recycling foil pie cases, which is great because they can be recycled over and over and over again!

Plus, you can put any uneaten leftovers in your kitchen food caddy and the card packaging in your paper and card bin.