Get ahead of the carve
If you’ve already picked up your pumpkin and it’s ready for carving make sure to look for a recipe to help you eat the flesh.
Each year eight million pumpkins are bought in the UK but only a third are eaten – now could be a great time to try a new recipe with lots of ideas on the Love Food Hate Waste website.
If you decide to hollow out your pumpkin and not eat it, you can still ensure its flesh is put to good use if it goes into your food waste bin.
Doing so means it will be recycled into energy and fertiliser once it’s collected by our waste teams.
Go green this Halloween
There’s no doubt Halloween will be different this year, with social distancing and restrictions in place due to Covid-19.
However you and your family are celebrating, here’s few suggestions to cut down on waste:
Don't miss a trick: recycle your pumpkin
Your pumpkins can be recycled by our waste teams.
If you can, cut it up and place it into your caddy but if you’ve got a larger pumpkin then this can be left by the side of your food waste bin, they’ll still take it away.
Our website can remind you which day your collection will be.
If you've got a trip planned to one of recycling centres at Smallmead or Longshot Lane, they can also be placed into the designated pumpkin bins there from 1 to 10 November.
New bags are weighted
As we get closer to the rollout of our new waterproof recycling bags, we’ll be answering some of the most frequently asked questions on them in this newsletter.
Q: Will these bags blow away?
A: The bags come with a 350g rubber pad at the bottom which will keep them from blowing away. The trial in Monmouthshire, where the bags are now in use, has found that the bags do not blow away when empty with only 23 replacement bags being requested by the 6,000 households that have trialled them since September 2019.
When we have updates on the rollout to residents, this newsletter will be the best place for the latest information, so keep your eyes peeled.
Helping young people and schools waste less
Earlier this month we held our Virtual Youth Climate Conference, an event we had planned to hold at our offices in March but postponed due to Covid-19.
Part of the event saw a staff panel discussing our work to make Wokingham a carbon-neutral borough by 2030, including boosting recycling both at home and at school.
Topics discussed include:
- Boosting recycling in schools
- How to cut down waste
- Why we use bottle banks in Wokingham Borough
If you’re interested you can watch the waste section of the staff panel on YouTube.
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