It's the season of excess, but rehoming or recycling things you no longer need and using your bins correctly will cut what goes to landfill.
Kids getting new Christmas bikes? Give the old ones a new life with a local child in need, communities in Africa, or sell them second-hand to recoup the cost of the new ones. Find all our options for rehoming bikes under 'B' on our A to Z of recycling page.
Or is Santa leaving a new phone under the tree? Turn your old one into a lifeline for a family violence survivor, or protect gorillas in Africa by recycling your phone at Melbourne Zoo. Find all our phone rehoming and recycling options under 'M' on our A to Z of recycling page.
These Christmas scraps can go in your FOGO bin. Prawn heads, seafood scraps and raw or cooked meat and bones, general food scraps.
But why not make another meal from them first? Prawn heads and shells make a quick and intense stock you can use in laksa, risotto or seafood stews. Stock made from smoked ham bones will give you smoky-delicious soup or pasta sauce.
Oyster shells can't go in your FOGO. Put them in your waste bin.
Dessert time. Berry punnets can be recycled and stonefruit seeds and stones go in your FOGO.
Planning to pop some bubbles? Recycle natural corks at Dan Murphy's in Camberwell, Hawthorn East and Kew. Plastic corks go in the waste bin.
Ready to roast. Roll any used aluminium foil into a fist-sized ball before putting it in the recycling bin. Baking paper goes in the waste bin.
Paper napkins and serviettes. These can be recycled in your home compost or FOGO bin.
Got a fridge-full of leftovers? Package them up for the freezer or hop online for hundreds of recipe ideas.
And what about wrapping? Unless it's plastic-coated or shiny, wrapping paper can go in your recycling bin. You don't need to remove small amounts of sticky tape from wrapping paper, but it's best practice to remove large strips of plastic tape where it's easy to do so. Cellophane goes in the waste bin, but bubble wrap can be recycled through our temporary soft plastic recycling service - simply drop off at Camberwell or Kew recycling centres.
Mulch that tree. Book a Christmas tree collection and when your (real) tree's past its best we'll collect it from your nature strip and turn it into mulch for use in our parks and gardens. Book on our Christmas tree collection page.
