With Christmas just around the corner, Kent County Council is reminding residents that real, and artificial, Christmas trees can be recycled at household waste and recycling sites – as well as old decorations – for free.
Kent County Council’s new cabinet member for the environment Susan Carey visited the Tovil household waste site on Friday, renowned for its recycled Christmas display.
For the past three years, staff at the Burial Ground Lane site have been collecting discarded Christmas decorations to make their festive grotto, complete with trees and festive statues.
Kent County Council’s new cabinet member for the environment Susan Carey visited the Tovil household waste site which is renowned for its recycled Christmas display.
Mrs Carey said: “Rubbish and recycling is probably the last thing on your mind as we approach Christmas, but in a few weeks, many of us will be knee deep in old wrapping paper, cardboard boxes and dearly loved by sadly departed Christmas trees.
“All of these items, and plenty more, can be taken to our waste and recycling sites across the county and disposed without charge.
“We take around 710,000 tonnes of waste each year, 48% of which is converted into energy and 50% is recycled or composted.
“At our Tovil site, 99.7% of all the material people bring to us is diverted away from landfill.
“The plastics we collect are all processed ensuring they remain in the UK and are used for remanufacturing.
“They are sorted into their various types and transported to reprocessing facilities to be turned into either flakes and pellets or sold back into the manufacturing industry.”
KCC has 18 waste and recycling sites at Ashford, Canterbury, Dartford, Deal, Dover, Faversham, Folkestone, Herne Bay, Maidstone, Margate, New Romney, Pepperhill, Richborough, Sevenoaks, Sheerness, Sittingbourne, Swanley, and Tunbridge Wells.
No plastics are sent to landfill, and across the whole of Kent less than 1% of all waste disposed goes to landfill.
You can find Christmas opening hours here.
Local kerbside collection arrangements may be slightly changed over the festive period and can also be found on District or Borough websites
