Increasingly, local councils are insisting that garden waste is disposed of separately to household waste, this is because it is degradable and can be used to make mulch, compost and other organic materials used in agriculture. This means that a separate bin is needed for the garden and with larger gardens, a good-sized garden bin is pretty much essential to keep the garden clear as the amount of waste like mown grass, weeding and other gardening activities produce can soon build up.

There are several different designs of gardening bin to choose from and they come in a wide variety of sizes too. Many garden waste bins are similar to the traditional dustbin, although commonly they are coloured green to help users identify the type of waste that goes into it, although any colour can be used for the job.

A good lid is important for a gardening bin as some waste in the garden can begin to rot and smell and will prevent wind from blowing grass cuttings and other waste around the garden after you have cleared it up.

These dustbin-type bins can be difficult to move around so increasingly wheelie bins are being used which allow householders to wheel the garden waste from the back to the front of the house ready for collection.

All this can be a bad time for the environment, as much of what we throw away ends up on landfill sites. But there are ways of recycling your Christmas rubbish and cutting down on what you throw away.

Christmas Trees

Every year nearly ten million Christmas trees are bought and disposed of each year, many of which are simply thrown away into the rubbish bin; however, Christmas trees are easy to recycle and provide useful materials such as wood chippings.

Many councils offer a collection and recycling service for Christmas trees but failing that, most household recycling centres will have somewhere for trees to be recycled.

Packaging and Gift Wrapping

Thousands of tonnes of wrapping paper is also thrown away each year. Sadly, the majority of gift wrapping cannot be recycled as the ink and sticky tape that covers it is too difficult to remove. You could of course look for better alternatives to the coloured wrapping paper, or try and reuse it rather than just throw it in the waste bin.

Excess packaging is also a problem at this time of year, and many people are now being careful of the products they buy are not full of excess packaging. Fortunately, a lot of it can be recycled so make sure you use the recycling bin and not just dump it in the dustbin.

Christmas Cards

Nearly a billion Christmas cards are bought and sent each year and many of these cards can easily be recycled, so again, use the recycling bins, not the dustbin.

Food Waste

While most of us eat and drink a little too much at Christmas, we also throw away tonnes of unwanted food. Try and buy less this year but if you do end up with too much food think of other ways of getting rid of it such as composting rather than just dumping it in the rubbish bin.

Recycling bins are inexpensive and look great

All kinds of recycling bins are available for around the home and if you have not got one yet, look around, especially on the internet, as you may be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to find low cost recycling bins.

Any good gardener knows the importance of a good gardening bin. It seems it doesn’t matter whether we are weeding, mowing, planting or seeding the garden is a key place for generating waste.

Many of us are now fortunate to receive gardening bins for our household gardening waste but so much more can be done with the waste from our back gardens that we are quite literally wasting our waste.

Most of the stuff that gets thrown out from when we are gardening such as lawn mowing clippings, weeds we’ve pulled up and leaf litter; can actually be reused by composting. Composting is simply the process of rotting down vegetable matter and using the by-product (compost) as food for the garden. It all sounds quite yucky and messy but there are compost bins available that can keep you compost out of sight.

A good gardening bin is still essential as not everything can be composed. Branches for instance will just sit on top of a compost heap and not decompose so a good sturdy bin is still required. It is always best to select a gardening bin with wheels for convenience as its better to bring the bin to you than traipse handfuls of gardening waste through the house.

Most gardening bins are similar to the conventional wheelie bin although they are mostly coloured green this is also quite useful as it stops you confusing gardening waste with other household rubbish which can be quite important as most gardening waste can be recycled but a lot of household litter can’t.

A good gardening bin needs a good lid too. Especially in the summer as keeping out flies from any bin is important otherwise they will slip through and lay eggs in the bin which can be horrible to clean up.

If you local council does not provided a gardening bin then they are not too expensive and a good quality gardening bin should last years so they are excellent value for money. Heavy duty gardening bins are also available for those that have allotments or work professionally in the gardening industry. These are often larger and are built to a higher standard to allow them to take the rigours of a busy working garden.