This won’t be the most exciting post you’ll read this Christmas, but it may be among the more useful.
Bin collection arrangements – for landfill and recycling – will not change over the holiday period. Put out your bins or boxes by 6am on 26 and 27 December, and 2 and 3 January.
If they aren’t collected, leave them outside until they are.
Communal bins will also be emptied as usual, although extra uplifts for glass and packaging may be introduced if necessary.
Christmas trees – with all the tinsel, baubels and grandchildren removed – should be sawn in half if over 6 foot high.
Leave them on the kerb on the usual brown-bin collection day. (Trees, not grandchildren.)
For those with communal bins, Christmas trees should be left on the kerb on the January days listed in the pdf below.
Christmas trees can also be taken to Community Recycling Centres, but not on 25 or 26 December or 1 or 2 January.
Festive recycling increased by 8 per cent last year, with a 7.5 per cent drop in the amount sent for landfill.
And in related news
Work has started on the new, £142 million Millerhill Resource and Energy Recovery plant for Edinburgh and Midlothian.
Once in full swing in 2019, it will will treat around 135,000 tonnes of household residual waste a year, 20,000 tonnes of commercial waste, and generate electricity to meet the needs of 32,000 households.
A waste treatment plant already operates at Millerhill.
The current Powderhall Waste Transfer Station will soon be nothing but a scented memory, ripe for redevelopment.