HOUSEHOLDS in Somerset are being given notice of changes to bin and recycling collections over Easter.

Collections that would usually happen on Good Friday, March 29, will now take place the following day, Saturday.

There are no collections on Easter Monday, April 1, pushing Easter week collections to a day later, including Friday collections taking place on Saturday, April 6.

Somerset Council said households could “help crews speed up collections” by putting boxes, bags and bins out by 7am on the day of collection, or the night before.

“With waste collections a day later a higher volume of waste is likely,” a spokesperson said. “Squashing, crushing and flattening waste can help to reduce the number of trips that teams need to make to empty their trucks, as well as creating more space in residents’ containers.”

Meanwhile, recycling sites across the county will revert to their summer opening hours from Monday, April 1. All sites will be open from 9am to 4pm on weekends, midweek sites will be open from 9am to 6pm.

The council has also reminded people how almost all Easter egg packaging can be recycled in weekly kerbside collections.

What can – and cannot – be recycled?

• Cardboard box – flattened and into your black recycling box.
• Aluminium foil – scrunched and into your Bright Blue bag.
• Plastic mould – into your Bright Blue Bag.

Chocolate bar and sweet wrappers, plastic bags and plastic-foil pouches, plastic ‘windows’ in boxes, and similar thin-soft plastic film cannot be recycled, so needs to be separated.

“Many of these plastics can be dropped off at supermarkets and some are taken in TerraCycle recycling schemes,” the spokesperson added.