Make it a green Christmas

Residents are being asked to spare a thought for the excess food that they may have lying around the house after the festive season is over.

Statistics suggest that one fifth of the food and drink we buy ends up being thrown away, costing the average Scottish household £430 a year.

East Dunbartonshire Council launched its weekly food waste collections last year and around 57 tonnes of food per week is now regularly collected – with more than 65 per cent of people in some areas using the service.

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It’s part of a council-wide drive to reducing waste and minimising how much rubbish is sent to landfill.

The council is facing increasingly challenging Scottish Government recycling targets and depute leader of the council Ashay Ghai is keen that residents should use their food caddies over Christmas.

He said: “Ideally we should all plan carefully what we buy at the supermarket and make sure we have little or no food waste at all. But we do tend to buy – and waste – more over the festive period, when we are cooking for family and friends and spending more time at home.

People in East Dunbartonshire are great at recycling their food waste throughout the year so we don’t want them to forget to do their bit just because they’re busy at Christmas.

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“Food waste such as leftovers from Christmas dinner and all out of date food after the festive celebrations can be placed in your caddy as normal, including bones and even turkey carcasses. However, we ask that no liquids or oils are placed inside.”

Meanwhile, there will be changes to the refuse collection dates over the festive season (see right), with some services running two days late on certain dates.

And there will be a special service for disposing of Christmas trees in an environmentally-friendly way.

Councillor Ghai explained: “We are encouraging residents to recycle their Christmas trees. Our recycling sites will be accepting trees from January 5. If anyone wants to recycle their Christmas tree but cannot take it to one of our recycling points, they can call the Customer Contact Centre on 0300 123 4510, who will arrange for the tree to be picked up in the week commencing 19 January 2015.”