For most independent butchers, December is the month that pays for the rest of the year, and it produces more waste than any other. Christmas butchers waste collection needs planning weeks before the first turkey order is boned out, because the bins fill faster, the chillers are already full of customer orders, and the bank holidays break up the normal collection pattern just when volumes peak.
Martlands is a family-run, DEFRA approved collector based in Burscough, Lancashire, licensed for Category 1, 2 and 3 material. We provide fallen stock and ABP collection across the North West, and December is the month when gaps in a shop’s waste planning show up fastest. This guide sets out what changes at Christmas and how to stay compliant through it.
Christmas butchers waste collection through the December rush
Why December waste volumes catch shops out
The Christmas order book changes the type of waste as well as the quantity. A normal week might be dominated by beef and lamb trim, fat and bone. In December the counter shifts to whole and crown turkeys, geese, three-bird roasts, boned and rolled joints, forerib of beef, gammons and game. Every one of those products creates its own waste stream. The government also publishes detailed guidance on animal by-product categories and disposal.
Poultry offal, necks, wing tips and backbones from crowns and boned birds come in volumes that a shop selling a few chickens a week never sees. Goose fat is often rendered and sold, but the remaining trim and carcass frames still have to go somewhere. Game birds bring feathers and heads. Boned and rolled joints, crown roasts and French-trimmed racks leave more bone and fat per kilo sold than the everyday counter. Add the pre-order production days, when the cutting room runs for twelve hours straight, and the bins that normally last a week can be full in two days.
All of this is animal by-product. It cannot go in general waste, and it cannot be left in a back yard in open sacks while you wait for the next scheduled pickup. A properly sized butchers waste collection arrangement for December is the only practical answer.
Category 3 is the bulk, but check for Category 1
Nearly everything a butcher’s shop produces at Christmas is Category 3. That covers trim, fat, bone, poultry offal, skin and feathers from animals that passed inspection and were fit for human consumption at slaughter, plus unsold or out-of-date meat products. Our Category 3 ABP collection is designed for exactly this material.
The exception is specified risk material. Most prime beef comes from cattle under 30 months, and the vertebral column of those animals is not SRM. Forerib from older cattle is different. If a shop is authorised to remove vertebral column from beef over 30 months, the chine bone and any other vertebral column removed is SRM, and the same applies to older sheep carcasses from which SRM is removed. That material must be stained, kept separate, and collected as Category 1. Mixing even a small amount of SRM into a Category 3 bin turns the whole bin into Category 1, which is more expensive to process and a compliance problem if an inspector finds it. If your Christmas beef includes older cattle, talk to us about Category 1 ABP collection alongside your normal service.
Planning collections around the bank holidays
In 2026 Christmas Day falls on a Friday and Boxing Day on a Saturday, so the substitute bank holiday is Monday 28 December. New Year’s Day 2027 is also a Friday. That means two long weekends in a row when collections, processing plants and your own staff are all working reduced hours, at exactly the point when you have just cleared the biggest production week of the year.
The shops that cope best book their December schedule in November. That usually means an extra collection in the week before Christmas, when pre-order production generates the most bone and trim, and a clearance collection as soon as possible after the Christmas weekend so the bins are empty before New Year orders start. Tell us your order collection days, your last production day and when you reopen, and we can fit your pickups around them through our KoLeCt booking system. Waiting until the bins are full on 22 December leaves very little room to manoeuvre.
Chilled storage when the chillers are full
The usual pressure point is space. Walk-in chillers that normally hold a few bins of waste are packed with customer orders labelled for collection on Christmas Eve. Waste gets pushed out of the chiller into a corridor or yard, and that is where problems start.
ABP must be stored in covered, leak-proof containers, clearly labelled with the category, and kept so that it cannot attract vermin, birds or cats or leak onto surfaces used for food. Poultry offal in particular deteriorates quickly once it warms up. If you cannot keep waste chilled, the answer is more frequent collection, not leaving bins out longer. Our leak-proof containers are supplied for this reason, and extra bins for December can be arranged if you tell us early. Our guide to butchers waste collection best practices covers storage, separation and cleaning in more detail.
Paperwork the EHO will expect to see
Environmental health officers can visit at any time, and in December a visit may be prompted by complaints about bins or smells from neighbours in busy high streets. They will want to see that ABP is separated, labelled and stored correctly, and that you have records showing where it went.
Every Martlands collection comes with a Commercial Document and a Waste Transfer Note. The Commercial Document records the category, quantity and destination of the ABP, and should be kept for at least two years. Keep December’s paperwork with the rest of the year’s records, not in a pile behind the till. If you are audited later by a retailer, a farm assurance scheme or your local authority, gaps around the busiest weeks are the first thing anyone notices. Our documentation also supports ISO 14001 and sustainability reporting if you supply larger customers.
Collection across Lancashire, Cheshire and beyond
From our base in Burscough we serve independent butchers, farm shops and cutting rooms throughout the North West. Shops in market towns and villages across the county use our Lancashire butchers waste collection, while family butchers and farm shops south of the Mersey rely on our Cheshire butchers waste collection. We also cover Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Cumbria and North Wales. Our rapid-response fleet means that if a shop’s December plan goes wrong, for example a chiller failure that leaves stock unsaleable, we can usually help at short notice.
A simple Christmas butchers waste collection checklist
Start by looking back at last December. How many times did the bins overflow, and on which days? Compare your Christmas order numbers with last year and expect waste to rise in proportion. Decide where SRM, if you have any, will be stored so it never ends up in a Category 3 bin. Agree extra collection dates before mid-December, including one after the Christmas weekend. Brief seasonal staff on what goes in which container, because temporary staff are the most common cause of contaminated bins. Finally, keep every Commercial Document and Waste Transfer Note together.
If you want to plan your Christmas butchers waste collection now, call Martlands on 01704 776977 or contact us online. Booking early is the simplest way to make sure the busiest week of the year does not end with a yard full of bins.
