City residents urged to check waste pick-up dates

Refuse teams say they are doing their best to tackle the "absolutely massive" annual 40% rise in recycling and waste over Christmas.

Bristol Waste has put "all hands on deck" at the city's waste centres to take on the huge increase in demand.

Households are being urged to check collection dates for refuse and recycling over the Christmas and new year period.

Hannah Dees, from Bristol Waste, said about 13,000 wheelie bins-worth of mince pies were binned across the UK each year "which is so much wasted food".

"In Bristol we see a huge spike in waste and recycling and in the volumes that people are throwing away," she said.

"It's absolutely massive."

The firm said: "In Bristol we've got a couple of techniques where garden waste services pause and one of the reasons for that is because of the huge increase in cardboard and food waste.

"So we need to redirect those services to help clear this huge volume of waste that gets produced over Christmas.

"All of our hardworking people on the frontline, it's all hands on deck to getting that Christmas waste cleared."

Ms Dees has urged people to gift an activity next Christmas "rather than an item that's going to go in the bin in January".

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