Many holiday items can be recycled or composted but foil means trash, says P.E.I. waste agency

By the time you read this, you might already be knee-deep in torn wrapping paper, demolished cardboard boxes and styrofoam whatnots from the Christmas morning frenzy. 

Those of you who packaged family gifts in reusable fabric sacks or pretty holiday gift bags are ahead of the game. You can just put those suckers back in a storage box, along with any sturdy bows and fabric ribbons, for re-use in 12 months. 

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Some of you might have taken a cue from a Japanese custom called furoshiki and tied up your gifts in attractive fabric sheets that themselves are a present to receive. Or you might have given your friends and relatives experiences rather than things, and have relatively little waste to contend with. 

If you haven't… well, maybe next year.

In the meantime, here's a list of what to do with each kind of Rudolph refuse. You can also check out the extremely thorough Island Waste Management interactive sorting guide if you're wondering about something not on this list. There's an app called Recycle Coach you can download as well. 

Wrapping paper

Plain or coloured paper goes in the compost bin, unless it has plastic coating or foil designs or embossing on it. Then it's waste.

Greeting cards

Greeting cards are compost unless they have plastic, foil, ribbons or other types of embellishment on the cards, in which case the entire card goes in the waste.  

If the greeting card has a battery to light up or play music, remove the battery and recycle it at a recycling collection location.

Gift bags

If they're shiny with a plastic coating, they're waste. (Or saveable for next year; see above.)

However, Island Waste Management says you can recycle gift bags made of brown paper with brown paper handles. They can go out on the next recycling day, with your corrugated cardboard or in blue bag number one (paper items).

Brown paper packaging

Clean packaging of this type is recyclable, and can go out with corrugated cardboard or in a blue bag number one (paper items).

Packaging material

Styrofoam packaging forms and peanuts are waste and go into the black bin. Same for plastic packaging forms that don't have a recycling number on them. 

Pulp fibre packaging forms that look like the stuff that egg cartons are made of can go into blue bag number one.

Even though some shippers are now using biodegradable packing peanuts made from naturally derived starches like wheat and cornstarch, especially for electronics, if they look like plastic or styrofoam, they are still waste. This is because collection drivers and staff at IWMC's central compost facility can't distinguish them from conventional plastic ones.

Ribbons, bows and tinsel

Waste, waste and waste.

Tissue paper

Compost it, even if it has traces of glitter. Island Waste Watch said it will accept a small amount of contamination on paper.

Bubble wrap

No recycling number on it? Put it in the waste (after you've popped it, of course).

Boxboard

Think cereal boxes, frozen pizza boxes or folding gift boxes for sweaters — anything cardboard that is not corrugated cardboard, which is made of two flat layers of thin cardboard with the wavy layer in the centre.

Put boxboard in the compost, while its cousin, corrugated cardboard, goes into the recycling.

Food waste

Potatoes, turnips, squash, carrots — so many root vegetables, so many peelings. IWMC suggests disposing of your veggie peelings in a cereal box or other type of boxboard, or if you don't have that, some newsprint or flyers, before putting them in your compost cart. Containing them this way will help prevent the peelings from freezing to your cart.

Any paper that has food waste on it is compost.

"Another thing is potato bags. We like to remind folks to remove the plastic mesh from the paper potato bag," IWMC said via email. 

Wooden boxes

It might be tempting to put these wooden citrus fruit boxes in the green compost container, but don't. They go in the black waste bin.

If you have a clementine box, any unwanted clementines and their seeds and peelings can go in compost, though.

Christmas wreaths and planters

If you don't want to dismantle them before tossing them, they are waste. If you separate the natural boughs from the wire  forms and hangers, not to mention the ribbons and fake berries, the boughs are compostable and all the other stuff goes into the black bin. 

Christmas lights

If there is a plastic cover over the lights, in a reindeer shape for example, and there's no recycling number on it, pull it off and put it in the waste. The rest goes in the recycling blue bag number two (plastic, metal, glass items) — bulbs or no bulbs.

If you can get the bulbs out, take them out and bring them to a Waste Watch drop-off centre for light bulb recycling.

If they won't come out, leave them with the string of lights and put them in blue bag number two (plastic, metal, glass items) for recycling.

Christmas tree

Here are the rules for whipping your discarded natural Christmas tree into shape for the curb: No ornaments or tinsel left on the branches, and no tree heavier than 23 kilograms (50 pounds) or longer than 2.4 metres (eight feet). If it's longer or heavier than that, you should cut it in half.

Curbside collection starts Jan. 6, so have your tree out then. Trees have to be curbside by 7 a.m. AT, and drivers are not able to come back to collect them if trees are not out in time. Keep in mind that trees may not be collected on the same day as your regular garbage pickup, so don't despair if yours hasn't been.

Make sure trees aren't stuck in or covered with snow or ice so that the crews can easily grab them as they go by.

Residential customers can also drop off their trees at Waste Watch Drop-Off Centres free of charge during January.

More than half a dozen Island goat farms have registered for the IWMC Christmas Tree Program. Check out IWMC's list of registered farm on its website, and arrange to deliver your tree directly to the farmer if you wish. 

Another idea is to stick your bare tree out in your backyard to act as shelter for birds and other wildlife in the wintry months ahead, or cut the branches off to spread on flower beds to give perennial and bulb roots extra protection from deep-freeze temperatures. Then when you do your spring cleanup, add the dried-up branches to your yard waste for pickup.