It’s Christmas
We’d like to wish everyone in West London a Happy Christmas and a relaxing festive season.
If you are reading this on Christmas Eve or Day we’ve got a few tips for you to help you reduce how much ends up in your bin on Christmas Day.
Tip 1
Sort for re-use and recycling when you’ve finished unwrapping your presents. Give someone the task of sorting out what can be recycled and what has to be thrown away, challenge them to throw away as little as possible.
Make it really easy to sort out by using cardboard boxes marked rubbish and recycling and put wrapping and packaging directly into these boxes. Don’t put everything into bin bags as it makes it even harder to sort it out later.
To find out what you can recycle visit the website for your local council – Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow or Richmond
Food is so important today, you’ve spent a lot of money on your Christmas dinner so you don’t want to see any of that money going in your kitchen bin
Tip 2
Your perfect portion. Before you start peeling and chopping work out how much you need to prepare. Find out how hungry your guests and family are, do they want a small portion or a big one? You could also use the Love Food Hate Waste online portion tool to see how many potatoes to peel or Brussels sprouts to cook. What you don’t prepare today you can eat over the next week.
Tip 3
Encourage everyone to have a second or third helping rather than pile their plates high and leave lots of the plates 
which will get thrown away. Letting people serve themselves will make it easier for you to put any uneaten food into plastic containers in the fridge for use in other meals. Anything covered in gravy or cut up and mixed with other things is harder to make in to something else.
Tip 4
Put leftovers in to airtight containers in the fridge or wrap tightly in foil and cling film. Storing them in a fridge that is 5oc or cooler will help keep them fresh for a couple of days.