TORRIDGE District Council has issued thanks to residents who have continued to boost the recycling rates across the District which now also includes small electrical goods and batteries.

While the festive season is a period for many to relax and spend time with family and friends, the message being sent out by the council is to ‘keep recycling, especially all the cardboard, drinks containers and other waste items Christmas celebrations usually generate.’

A spokesperson for Torridge District Council said: “Torridge crews will be taking a well-deserved short break during the festive period and there will be no kerbside recycling collections on Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year's Day. However, crews will be working normally on other days across the holiday period to collect any festive leftovers.

“The Council is asking people to check their collection dates on their online calendar as some of the collections will be a day later or earlier than usual as a result of the public holidays.

To accommodate the extra work over this period, as usual, there will be no garden waste collections between Monday December 23, 2024 and Sunday, January 5, 2025. Collections will start again on Monday January 6, 2025.”

Torridge District Council said that lots of festive items can be fully recycled, including: real christmas trees - Ideally chopped up and placed in the green wheelie bin or whole trees can be placed next to the Green Bin, plastic bottles, containers and tins (green box), foil trays (green box), glass bottles and jars (black box), christmas cards without glitter (brown bag), christmas card envelopes (brown bag), food waste, including turkey bones (green food caddies), cardboard (broken up or flattened) which must be placed in the brown bag.

The spokesperson continued: “Each household can have two brown bags and to order an extra one people should visit the Councils website. There are some items which unfortunately cannot be recycled: large, oversized cardboard boxes may be rejected unless broken into pieces and placed in the brown bags or alternatively these can be taken to one of the local Devon County Council recycling centres, and items covered in glitter.

“We can only accept brown wrapping paper due to the low-grade nature of standard wrapping paper for which there is currently no commercial end use.

“Items that can't be recycled will be collected in the black bag waste collections but no waste will be sent to landfill as these collections are sent to an energy from waste plant where it is processed to generate electricity.”

Councillor Chris Leather, lead member for Waste and Recycling added: "2024 has been a great year for recycling, and I would like to express my gratitude to the residents of Torridge who have supported our crews and continued to recycle throughout the year. Please remember to 'wash and squash' your plastic bottles and cans, as this helps our crews to collect double the amount of recycled materials on each round. In closing, I would like to wish all of our residents a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!"