Changes to bin collections this Christmas and New Year

South Cambridgeshire and Cambridge residents are being asked to double-check their bin collection dates during the Christmas and New Year period – and recycle as much as possible during the festivities.

Many regular collection days will be changing due to the bank holidays. The collection for Christmas Day, Tuesday 25 December, has been brought forward to Saturday 22 December.

Collections return to their regularly scheduled days from Monday 7 January.

You can also check your bin collection day on this part of our website.

Bin collections across Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire are carried out by the Greater Cambridge Shared Waste Service, a partnership between Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire District Councils.

Cllr Neil Gough (pictured - above), South Cambridgeshire District Council's Lead Cabinet Member for Environmental Services and Licensing, said: “2018 has been a year when environmental issues have made regular headlines, and we should all do our bit to make sure we end it on a recycling high. Any cardboard boxes that presents have been delivered in can be broken-up and put in the blue bin. Christmas cards and wrapping paper can also go in there, as long as they don’t have any metallic bits or glitter on. After all the festivities, remember to put all your used but empty and clean food and drinks cans, aerosols, tins, plastic bottles, tubs and pots and glass jars and bottles in the blue bin. These are all resources and can be re-processed and turned into new materials. It uses far less energy, and creates much less pollution, to recycle items than create entirely new objects from scratch. If you’re not sure if something can be recycled, use our “what goes in which bin” feature on our website. It’s important to avoid putting things in your blue bin that shouldn’t be there as they contaminate other items inside. I’m also urging residents to double check bin collection days for changes and want to particularly highlight the collection that would have been on Christmas Day will instead be on Saturday 22 December.”

Cllr Rosy Moore, Cambridge City Council's Executive Councillor for Environmental Services and City Centre, said: “It’s a really busy time of year, so I’d urge everyone to double check their bin collection days, so you don’t miss them during Christmas and New Year. Recycling is always important, but with some careful choices, we can minimise the amount of rubbish we have to deal with this month. Magazine or old road atlas pages are great for wrapping smaller gifts and look great. Avoid buying metallic plastic gift wrap, and paper with glitter on it, which can’t be recycled. It’s the same with Christmas cards – choose those without glitter or plastic on. If you end up with leftovers from Christmas dinner, pop them in the freezer to make a soup or curry with later. I’d also like to remind residents that we’re approaching our winter green bin collections schedule, so we’ll collect green bins once a month from Christmas. We return to fortnightly green bin collections from the beginning of March.”