The messy problem of Christmas waste

While the Christmas holiday is a fun time of year for many people, it can cause a lot of excess waste. As we become more conscious of the impact on the environment, many of people are finding clever alternatives to traditional Christmas wrapping. However, if you still find yourself with wrapping, packaging and other festive season detritus, we have some tips for you.

Where you can, try to save the wrapping and ribbons to reuse – but if you’ve got so excited to unwrap and the wrapping is torn or otherwise unusable, make sure it goes into the right bin.

Plain paper wrapping can be put in the yellow recycling bin.
Metallic, plastic or foil wrap, gift bags and ribbons aren’t recyclable and need to go into the rubbish.

Disposing of gift wrapping

Clean, flat cardboard and paper larger than an envelope can go in your yellow recycling bin!
Plastic ribbons, bows and shiny foil/metallic wrapping paper and gift bags go in the rubbish. If the inside is shiny or hard to tear and feels like plastic, it’s probably plastic and should go in the bin.
How to know if it’s plastic? Try the tear test – if you can’t rip it easily, it’s likely to have a plastic coating so put it in the rubbish to be safe. The same applies if you scrunch the wrapping and it opens back out.
Plastic wrap, bubble wrap, cellophane, plastic ribbons and bows can be saved and reused. If they are too tatty, they need to go in the rubbish.
Small pieces of paper, tissue wrap, and natural cotton ribbons can be composted at home, otherwise they go into the green rubbish bin.
Polystyrene packaging can’t go in the recycling bin. Please dispose of it in the rubbish.

Toy and gift packaging

Plastic packaging of any kind, twisty ties, plastic strapping and soft plastic packaging goes in the rubbish.

Christmas trees

Real trees can be taken to the green-waste area at the transfer station (standard charges will apply).
Fake trees that are past their best need to go in the rubbish if they can’t be passed onto someone else.
Ornaments and tinsel go in the rubbish if they can’t be donated or reused.

Glass bottles and jars

Unless they can be reused for the summer-fruit preserving season, glass bottles and jars can be recycled at Hokitika Transfer Station, or disposed of at one of our other transfer stations. Otherwise, they should go into the green rubbish bin.

Breakages and broken glass

If your toasting was a bit enthusiastic over Christmas dinner, broken glassware needs to be wrapped in paper and put in the rubbish. The same applies to crockery, Christmas ornaments or any other type of broken glass.

Leftovers

Leftover food including turkey and meat bones can go into your home compost. If this isn’t an option, it goes into the green rubbish bin.

Full bins

It’s easy to completely fill recycling and rubbish bins at this time of year. The truck won’t be able to collect your bin unless the lid is closed flat for collection, so make sure you don’t overfill your bin.
Excess cardboard, or other recyclables that won’t fit in the yellow bin can be taken to the transfer stations for free.
For a small fee, bagged, excess rubbish can be taken to the transfer stations.

Unwanted gifts

If you received something you don’t need or want, pass it on to a charity shop, re-gift to someone else or save it for a garage sale.

Bin Collection

Rubbish and recycling collection will continue as normal over the Christmas period. See here for information on bin collection and transfer station hours.

Click here for more information about the items that can go in your yellow bin.