I'm dreaming of a green Christmas

The recycling team at Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) is asking residents to be waste-aware over the festive season.

A third of the food we buy is thrown away, so MCC is encouraging people to reduce the amount of food that ends up in landfill sites.

According to Waste Awareness Wales' ‘Love Food Hate Waste'/ ‘Hoffi Bwyd Casáu Gwastraff' campaign, Welsh shoppers bin around 330,000 tonnes of food every year, - that's the equivalent weight of almost 41,250 double-decker buses and is enough to fill over 36,000 waste collection vehicles!

Wasting food also costs the average household £420 a year so MCC is encouraging shoppers store food efficiently and use recipes for leftover food to not only keep waste to a minimum but save some money too.

Lisa Roberts, from MCC's cleansing and waste department, said:

"An easy way to cut down on waste is by measuring portion sizes. After your Christmas dinner, don't throw your leftovers away. Instead think of all the different meals you could make by using your leftovers."

MCC's tips for reducing food waste this Christmas:

Make sure you know what needs to be eaten first - familiarise yourself on what the different date labels (e.g. use by, best before) mean;
If you've got food such as bread you know you won't be eating immediately, try freezing it;
Make good use of the fridge - for example, most ripe fruit can be kept in the fridge to make it last longer;
Soft carrots or cucumber can be sat in water and chilled to give them their bite back.
Portion control will not only save on the pennies but will also ensure that you're not left with hundreds of untouched sprouts. As a rough guide, a portion of vegetables should equate to a handful per head. However at Christmas you may be serving many types of vegetables in one meal, so the individual portion sizes may need to be smaller;
Make the most of your Christmas leftovers - not only is leftover turkey great for making sandwiches, salad and pies, but leftover vegetables can be used in soups or curries. There are many recipe available online - visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com for lots of recipe ideas for leftovers;
For a sweet treat, create your very own ice-cream using leftover Christmas pudding;
Even food that never made it to the table can avoid the bin. Vegetable peelings, orange rinds - even tea bags and eggshells - can all be composted at home. Christmas flowers can also go into your home composting bin.

Christmas and New Year 2008/09 collections

The recycling (Purple Bags and Black Box), green/food waste and refuse collections dates for Christmas and New Year are:

Monday 22nd December 2008 until Wednesday 24th December 2008will be collected as normal.
Thursday 25th December 2008 will be collected on Saturday 27th December 2008
Friday 26th December 2008 will be collected on Sunday 28th December 2008
Monday 29th December 2008 until Wednesday 31st December 2008 will be collected as normal
Thursday 1st January 2009 will be collected on Friday 2nd January 2009
Friday 2nd January 2009 will be collected on Saturday 3rd January 2009