There is no kerbside rubbish and recycling collection on Christmas Day (Thursday 25 December) so Council will be emptying everyone’s wheelie bins one day later than normal that week. Thursday’s collection moves to Friday, and Friday’s collection to Saturday.

Collection returns to normal from Monday 29 December and there are no changes over the New Year period, bins will be emptied as usual.

Council is encouraging households to keep up their good recycling habits over the holiday period, when volumes of rubbish and recycling typically increase.

Infrastructure Group Manager Neil McCann said foil, ribbons and tinsel could not be recycled and should be put in the red bin.

“Try the tear test. If you can’t easily rip it, it’s likely to have a plastic coating so throw it in the red bin, along with any other plastic gift packaging.

“And it should be obvious, but Christmas hams or leftover Christmas food can’t be recycled, so remember to put those in the red bin.  The good news is that from September next year, we'll have our new green organic bins in place, which will accept food scraps and help us divert more waste from the landfill.”

For kerbside recycling, glass bottles and jars should be rinsed clean and put in the green crate. The yellow wheelie bin is for recycling that includes hard plastics 1, 2 and 5, cardboard and paper (but not shredded paper). Soft plastics and broken toys cannot be recycled in your yellow bin.

Mr McCann said the holiday season often saw more contamination in kerbside recycling because visitors didn’t know the district’s recycling rules.

“For example, if you live in Christchurch you can put your clean glass bottles and jars in the yellow bin but in Ashburton we separate them out and collect them in the green crate. So if you have family and friends staying over the holiday break, double check the recycling bin when you put it out.”

Other tips to follow:

• Batteries should be collected separately and taken to the resource recovery park for disposal, not put in the red bin.
• Pizza boxes with leftover food in them cannot be recycled.
• Lids, plastic or metal and of any size, cannot be recycled in kerbside bins, but they can be taken to your nearest resource recovery park.

Resource Recovery Parks

The Ashburton Resource Recovery Park will close at 12pm on Christmas Eve, and be closed on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. It will be operating for the usual hours of 8am-6pm from 27- 31 December. It will be closed on New Year’s Day, but open on 2 January when normal hours will resume.

Normal summer hours for the Ashburton park are 8am-6pm Monday to Friday, 9am-6pm Saturday, 9am-5pm Sunday.

The Rakaia Resource Recovery Park will be closed 24-26 December, and closed from 31 December until 2 January.

The Methven green waste facility will be closed on Wednesday 24 December and Wednesday 31 December