Waste and recycling over the festive season
Your one-stop-shop for seasonal waste and recycling details to ease the holiday stress. Find out when your collection days will be over the holiday season, when your Christmas tree will be collected and some festive tips on how to have a waste free break.
For Bristol residents with a Christmas tree collection, please put it out on your first big bin day starting from Tuesday 7 January.
Bulky and Garden Waste
Due to minimal demand for garden waste collections during the winter holiday, we temporarily suspend this service.
By redirecting the crews who usually tackle bulky and garden waste, we are able to manage the increased volume of recycling at this time of year. This also enables us to continue to collect Christmas trees from households across the city.
Remember, you can still take bulky, garden waste and Christmas trees to one of our Household Reuse and Recycling Centres, compost garden waste at home or wait for the next scheduled collection.
Find your next collection using Bristol City Council’s handy collection day finder.
What happens to old Christmas trees?
The trees go through a long composting process to produce a material used for land regeneration and energy.
All decorations must be removed from your tree and left where you would normally put out your refuse or recycling. Please note that we cannot accept trees that are taller than two metres.
Your collection calendar will show a yellow tree symbol to mark the day of your Christmas tree collection.
Festive food
Eat, drink and be merry for sure but check out our festive food page.
Find out how to waste less, save money and make sure that any unavoidable food waste gets recycled and turned into soil improver and energy that powers our city.
Can you recycle your holiday cards?
Cards can be recycled in your blue bag. We don’t take cards with glitter on as this contaminates the recycling stream. Tear the glittery part of the card off and put it in your wheelie bin, then put then non-glittery cardboard in the blue bag.
On the topic of cardboard…gifts inevitably include packaging, much of which is cardboard. Please remove tape and stickers, then flatten or fold your cardboard so it fits inside your blue bag. This ensures the cardboard will fit into the compartment in our recycling trucks.
Can you recycle wrapping paper in Bristol?
Unfortunately, we are unable to recycle your wrapping paper. This is because most of it has either a plastic or foil coating, and if it ends up in the recycling box it would contaminate our whole paper stream. Please place in your black wheelie bin instead.
You can avoid non-recyclable wrapping paper by wrapping presents in traditional brown paper or fabric with ribbons or thin strips of fabric to make bows. Or how about using bright material scraps or pictures from a colourful magazine?
How to dispose of fairy lights
We’ve all been there. Finally dug out the fairy lights to adorn your tree and they aren’t working.
If they are beyond repair please don’t throw them in your black wheelie bin, or all those precious metals and valuable components will go to waste. Pop them in a clear bag in your black recycling box or take them to one of our household waste recycling centres.
It’s a simple way to do your bit to stop valuable resources going to waste!
What can you do with unwanted gifts
Didn’t like or use what granny gave you last year? That knitted jumper Aunty Sue gave you not your style? Why not re-gift it to someone who will? Alternatively, there are plenty of charity shops to donate them to so others can feel the love.
Bin batteries safely
Overused the remote this festive season? Kids drained their gadgets? Please put your used batteries out for recycling in the black box. Be sure these don’t get mixed up with other recyclables by putting them in a clear plastic bag so they are easily identifiable.
Recycling centre opening times
Our three Bristol reuse and recycling centres are closed on Christmas Day (25 December), Boxing Day (26 December) and New Years Day (1 January).
The perfect place to recycle broken fairy lights, used Christmas trees and additional seasonal waste for free, you can book your recycling centre visit online as little as one hour before.
Download your collection calendar
Disclaimer: bins and boxes are not a safe place to leave deliveries and we are not responsible for any items that are incorrectly placed in them.
Thanks for reading our festive tips. Happy holidays!