How to have a greener Christmas

Electronics
If you got a new phone, appliance or gadget this Christmas find out what to do with your old one. Laptops can be donated to Power to Connect and other charities. Find out more. Broken fairy lights and other hard-to-repair items can be taken to the WEEE recycling bay at the Smugglers Way waste and recycling plant in Wandsworth.

Food
The Love Food Hate Waste campaign has some handy tips on how to use up Christmas leftovers.

Packaging
Bottles, jars and drinks cans can all be recycled in your clear sacks and orange-lidded bins, as can rinsed plastic pots and tubs such as those used for Christmas pudding, cream and ice cream. The cardboard from present packaging can be recycled, but plastic shrinkwrap, tin foil, Pringle tubes, bubble wrap or polystyrene cannot go in with the rest of your recycling. Please put these items in with general rubbish or find alternative methods of recycling them – for example many supermarkets collect plastic bags and film.

Textiles
If you have got new clothes, shoes or other textiles, the old ones cannot go in with your recycling but can be donated to charity or put in textile recycling banks. Find out more.

Tree
The council will collect your Christmas tree free of charge between January 3 and January 16. Put them out on your scheduled refuse collection day alongside your rubbish and recycling sacks. If you live in flats leave your tree near your communal refuse bin store. Find out more.

Wrapping paper and cards
Wrapping paper (except the metallic kind) and Christmas cards (without glitter on) can go in your clear recycling bag or orange-lidded recycling bin. Test if your wrapping paper is metallic or paper by scrunching it up. If it stays scrunched, it’s paper. 

• For more tips about Christmas recycling, visit Recycle Now
• You can find out about how other items can be recycled locally on our Recycling A-Z
• Find out more about waste and recycling in Wandsworth, including service changes over Christmas.