Details about waste services across festive period

Festive recycling and refuse collections are as follows:

• Bins scheduled for collection on Wednesday 25 December will be collected on the earlier date of Saturday 21 December.
• Thursday 26 December bins will be collected on Saturday 28 December.
• Wednesday 1 January bins will be collected Saturday 4 January.
• There are no changes to collections on Thursday 2 January.

For the festive period only (Monday 23 December to Monday 6 January):

• If your bin is not emptied on its scheduled collection day, please bring it back in.
• If a black lid bin is presented and missed, we will collect up to two extra black bags of excess waste on its next scheduled collection day.
• If a recycling bin is presented, missed, and not tagged, we will collect extra recycling of the same type on its next scheduled collection day.

Details of missed collections will appear on our website www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/binsdisruptions

We know that the festive period can lead to excess waste and that is why it is important to keep in mind how to reduce, reuse, and recycle. That includes making good use of your green caddy for all food waste. Remember, peelings and bones can go into food waste too.

Our hard-working waste collection crews are focused on providing a great service but, inevitably, people will be inconvenienced in the winter season as temperatures drop.

We thank you for your patience as the crews navigate the often-difficult conditions they find themselves working in across the colder months for the residents and trade customers of Aberdeenshire.

For households only, if you find yourself accumulating additional recycling and waste items, our household recycling centres are available to visit www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/RecyclingCentres

Household recycling centres across the festive period:

• Close at 3pm on Tuesday 24 December. Last entry for all booked vehicles at 2:30pm.
• Closed all day on Wednesday 25 and Thursday 26 December.
• Close at 3pm on Tuesday 31 December. Last entry for all booked vehicles at 2:30pm.
• Closed all day on Wednesday 1 January.

We ask that all visitors to our household recycling centres check the website prior to travelling in case of closure, a change in opening times, a need to book, and to see what can be recycled.

If you do need to book, please arrive on time as entry may be refused to anyone arriving outside of their given time slot.

Commercial-type vehicles and vehicles with trailers must book to access all sites, with limits on their number of visits. Booking is required for all vehicles to access Inverurie and Westhill household recycling centres.

Booking slots for bulky uplifts are closed from the week commencing 16 December and start again from the week commencing 6 January.

You can get all the latest updates on waste collections along with an array of other council information by downloading the MyAberdeenshire app: www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/my/mobile-app/

Real Christmas tree?

If it hasn’t been treated, sprayed with fake snow, etc, then there are quite a few good ideas out there for getting use out of it after the decorations come down. Of course, there’s always planting it out if it came with roots! Aberdeenshire Council doesn’t have a Christmas tree uplift service, so you’d need to take it to the nearest recycling centre as green waste.

For the branches: Make a bird feeder – cut off the branches, cover them in butter or margarine and then roll them in bird seeds. Make a wreath with the boughs. Use twiggy branches as plant supports in the spring – trim down and leave to dry out in the shed. Use the entire tree as the structure for climbing plants like clematis. Boughs can be used over flower beds as frost protection over winter.

For the trunk – cut into small disks and use as border edging. Larger pieces can be stacked in a corner to make a bug hotel.

For the needles – put into small fabric bags and use in wardrobes, drawers, etc for a fresh pine scent.

You can put the tree through a shredder and use as mulch. Just heap at the back of a border until it has rotted down a little, then spread in the warmer months.

Burning – use some of the dry branches in OUTDOOR fire pits (never indoor).

Post-Christmas Recycling

Make sure you have enough food recycling bags for your peelings and all those leftovers you don’t manage to eat up in time!

Wrapping paper

Blue lid recycling bin

Can be recycled if it scrunches and stays compressed, springy wrapping paper with plastic content cannot be recycled.

Metallic wrapping paper

Black bin (non-recyclable waste)

Currently can’t be recycled through our services.

Bubble wrap

Black bin (non-recyclable waste)

Currently can’t be recycled through our services.

Greeting cards (containing glitter)

Black bin (non-recyclable waste)

Currently can’t be recycled through our services as glitter causes contamination. You can remove back of the card if it is glitter free.

Greeting cards (without glitter)

Blue lid recycling bin

Make sure there is no glitter.

32 of the most frequently asked questions on the new three-bin, three-week cycle starting at the end of May.

Aberdeenshire Council’s Landscape Services are trialling ‘No-Mow May’ across Aberdeenshire.

The purpose of this is to allow lawns to flower, to monitor which species grow and support pollinator insects. We are also raising the profile of the initiative, which comes from Plantlife, to encourage others to do the same.

We have erected temporary posters with more information about the initiative. The posters will be removed at the beginning of June when we’ll restart with the grass cutting.

For our sites, ‘left for summer’ means May, with the cut in June.

The sites have been chosen on visible and prominent places where we can maintain accessibility, with paths and edges cut regularly depending on the site.

We will record all feedback to consider for future years.

The lawn will miss out on two cuts in May, and we are not anticipating the grass to be at great length. This will allow staff resources to be allocated to other valuable tasks.

Across Aberdeenshire, people need to be aware of the risk ticks pose and that you can get a tick bite sitting on a mown lawn, similarly as walking through long grass.

There are several areas in Portlethen that are included in #NoMowMay

To enhance the biodiversity value and lower the carbon footprint from annual blooms,
Aberdeenshire Council’s Greenspace Project is interested in supporting a greater variety of
herbaceous perennials in tubs, baskets and beds across communities. This invitation is for
community groups keen to see this too.

How typical are Aberdeenshire’s kerbside collections?

When putting out information about our bins and recycling strategy, I get a lot of comments along the lines of ‘everyone else does (this), why can’t we?’ So, I went looking for information on what everyone else actually does.

Firstly, there are 32 different councils in Scotland – from islands to cities to the massive area of the Highlands. I therefore looked at size and population to select the councils to compare Aberdeenshire against, ending up with the six councils with the most similar population density (three above, three below) to ours.

All six councils have different systems to each other, and to Aberdeenshire.

Council	Number of bins	Glass collected?	Garden waste?	Recycling rate (2020)
Aberdeenshire (future system)	3	No	No (subject to review)	40.8%
Angus	3	Yes, in mixed recycling bin	Yes	57.9%
Dumfries & Galloway	3	No	No	30.1%
Moray	4	Yes, in separate box	Yes, fee applies*	54.9%
Perth & Kinross	3	No	Yes*	49.4%
Borders	2	No	No	52.8%
Stirling	4	Yes, in separate box	Yes, fee applies*	47.8%

Collection schedules differed substantially. The Borders have the same system we currently have, with fortnightly collections of bins and weekly collections of the food waste caddy. Stirling collects each type of bin every four weeks, bar the combined food and garden waste which is every two weeks. The longest gap for collection of food waste is in Moray (combined with garden waste), every three weeks. For Moray and Stirling, the same bin is provided whether you use it for garden waste or not. If you do put garden waste in, then it will only be collected if you have paid the yearly fee (£40/£35).

Going from two to three bins and from fortnightly to three weekly collections might seem like a radical idea, but when you look at similar councils, it’s actually unremarkable.

Remember, the rollout of the new system will happen in stages throughout 2023. Properties that do not have space for a third bin can request alternative arrangements. Food waste will still be collected every week.

Aberdeenshire Council have just published their area and major town profiles for 2022. I find myself confused by the number of ‘house completions’ in Portlethen being so low, but perhaps Hillside is not counted as Portlethen? I will ask.

‘Diamond’ bins need to be replaced. We are the only area in Scotland still using these, so they need to be swapped out for the kind everyone else uses, that way south Aberdeenshire doesn’t need its own fleet of bin lorries that can’t be used elsewhere. These bins are coming to the end of their projected 15 year lifespan anyway.

This process will be slow, so it’s starting in the rural areas at the end of August, gradually making its way to the coastal urban areas. This is to take advantage of decent weather in the harder-to-reach routes.

Old bins will be shredded and recycled into new bins.

There will be plenty of advertising in the run up to the bin swap, including letters sent to residents two weeks beforehand. The company replacing the bins will be working in tandem with the regular bin lorry and crew, following directly behind them on their route. Your current bin will be emptied, then immediately replaced. It is very important that your bin is left out on these replacement days, even if it’s empty. Workers will be actively looking for bins, but obviously problems will be caused if they cannot locate and replace your bin on the day.

Bins will be replaced on their normal collection days, so you will have two consecutive weeks when you’ll need to put the appropriate bin out so that it can be replaced with the new style. THIS IS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE 3 WEEKLY COLLECTIONS. This is a separate project, purely concerned with swapping out your current black and blue-lidded bins. I don’t have any information yet on when the orange-lidded bins will arrive.

3 WEEKLY COLLECTIONS: you can find the latest press release here: Aberdeenshire Council progresses Spring 2023 launch of enhanced household recycling service – Aberdeenshire Council As you can see, there will be no changes in our area until sometime in 2023. I’ll share more information nearer the time.

Finally, a few notes on other items discussed.

• The Ness energy project is progressing well. This is a joint project with Aberdeen City and Moray.
• The deposit return scheme (for glass bottles) is now due to begin in August 2023. After this time, there will be a review of which glass recycling facilities are still needed. https://depositreturnscheme.zerowastescotland.org.uk/
• Tyres are now accepted at the waste transfer station in MacDuff. They will soon (no date provided) be accepted at the stations in Ellon and Banchory.
• Hybrid system for recycling centres will be trialled, after consultation with Area Committees.