Changes will take place to Wirral's bin collection days to allow for the Christmas break.

The most significant difference is for those people who subscribe to the garden waste collection service.

From today until they resume from Tuesday, January 19, there will be no garden waste collections due to the scheduled winter shut down.

There are also changes to green and grey bin days if you are scheduled for collections on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

If your collection was due for Christmas Day (Friday) it will now take place on Sunday,  December 27.

If your bin was to be collected on New Year’s Day (Friday) it will be collected on Saturday, January 2, instead.

All other collection days remain the same.

The loacl authority asks readers to make sure bins are out by 7am on the morning of collection as crews are operating on a winter schedule and may arrive earlier than normal.

What to do with the most common xmas items:

 • Wrapping paper – only pure paper wrapping can be placed in your grey recycling bin. The foil or shiny type paper cannot be recycled.

• Christmas cards – these can go in the grey bin, and there are also many shops that also offer a Christmas card recycling service. Alternately, old Christmas cards can be kept and re-used for gift tags next Christmas.

• Envelopes – All envelopes can be recycled via the grey bin, so long as there is no plastic window in it. Keen recyclers may choose to tear out the plastic window.

• Boxes – Cardboard boxes, which you may want to flatten to save space, can be placed in the grey bin for recycling.

• Toy packaging – Many toys these days come packaged with a combination of cardboard and plastic. Only the cardboard can be recycled, so if you want to recycle these items, you must ensure all the plastic elements are removed.

• Bottles and cans – All glass bottles and aluminum cans can go in your grey bin. When having parties, some people find it handy to put a box in the kitchen to collect empty bottles and cans in to help with the recycling and cleaning up!

• Food waste – Invaluable help and advice on how to avoid generating too much food waste and using what leftovers you might have can be found at www.lovefoodhatewaste.com

• Christmas trees – If you subscribe to the garden waste collection service, you can recycle your real Christmas tree in your brown bin.

You should cut it up into smaller pieces and place it in the brown bin (with the lid closed) until the kerbside collections resume from  January 19.

To report a problem with bin collections between December 23 January 4, go online to the council website - www.wirral.gov.uk/bins-and-recycling