RESIDENTS are being urged to take their Christmas recycling to the tip this year.

The Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority (MRWA) are asking householders across Wirral to visit their recycling centres to get rid of cans, bottles, cardboard, electricals and real Christmas trees after the festive period.

Each of the centres are open every day of the year except for Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day from 8am until 5pm.

Chief executive of MRWA Carl Beer said: “A lot of waste is created at this time of the year so it’s a good chance to boost Merseyside’s recycling levels.

"Our Recycling Centres will happily accept the clutter of people’s packaging, bottles and cans - and we’d love your real Christmas trees.”

Bosses are also offering ten tips for residents to make sure their festive season is cleaner:

  • Try and separate your waste before visiting your local Recycling Centre. This way you’ll be able to deposit things more easily and help reduce queues at sites.
  • Flatten cardboard boxes before adding them to a recycling container – it will take up less room.
  • Remove any plastic wrapping and polystyrene before placing cardboard boxes into the correct container. Unfortunately we can’t recycle your plastic gift wrapping. Similarly, please don’t bring us plastic bags – try to reuse them as much as possible and next time you go shopping why not buy a bag-for-life?
  • Try and avoid putting recyclable items in your black ‘residual’ bin bags. If you cut down on this then there’ll be less chance you’ll have excess black bin bags to bring to your HWRC.
  • Bring us your cans and bottles – an extra 500 million drinks are generated during the festive period!
  • After Christmas you can bring your real Christmas trees to our Recycling Centres where they’ll be shredded and turned into chippings for compost.
  • All our Recycling Centres accept electrical items, so if you’ve got anything that uses batteries or has a plug that you no longer use bring it along and it’ll be recycled.
  • An excess of oil is used over the Christmas period, with festive food such as turkey, roast potatoes and fry-ups on the agenda. Used cooking oil tanks can be found at each of Merseyside HWRC for residents to dispose of waste oil.
  • Why not make a New Year’s resolution to recycle more often? Visit www.recycleright.org.uk for more information about what you can and can’t recycle.