Garden Waste Collection Con

[Deskdiary]

We have a fortnightly rubbish collection and a fortnightly garden waste collection. This has been going on for about 10 years following the decision by the council to halve the collections from a weekly collection.

I have today received an email from the council telling me the garden waste collection will be becoming an opt-in service, and if I want to opt-in, it's going to cost me £100 a year.

My CT is just shy of £2,800 a year.

Am I the only one who finds this outrageous? Can I expect to have an 'opt-in' option at some point in the future for rubbish collection?

[Ryzen]

Prudie...if they were collecting before you started paying £40 pa then the charge was coming from the council tax.

[woofgang]

spath "This is outrageous.

If it's the case, i'll start putting my grass trimmings on the local pasture instead. Claim i'm helping them mulch."

If there are grazing animals on the pasture then please don't do this. fermenting grass clippings can kill livestock

[Prudie]

They never collected garden waste before they brought in this option - it was a tiresome and car ruining trip to the tip. One thing's for sure from this thread - every council seems to do it differently.

[vulcan42]

My council seems to have a sensible idea. Once a fortnight they collect the blue bin ( recyclable ) and once a fortnight the black and brown bins, two different vehicles. The brown bin is for garden and food waste which get recycled together to create compost. This is sold to the public and all collections are free.

[Ryzen]

I understand you now Prudie.....we have had the collection for around 10 years for 'free'....and we only pay £3000 pa council tax..bargain.

[Butterbun]

Some lucky people out there. My situation is the same as Prudie's. No collection if you don't pay, you get a sticker to put on the bin so they know to collect those.

[Buenchico]

>>> "We have a fortnightly rubbish collection and a fortnightly garden waste collection"

Er, what happened to the recycling collection?

Our local council has always charged for collecting garden waste, for which residents have to ask for a dedicated brown wheelie bin. (We have green bins for recycling and black ones for everything else). Since the vast majority of properties in the area don't have brown bins anyway, it seems perfectly reasonable to make a charge to collect from such bins (especially as such collections don't form part of the fortnightly cycle for the other bins).

Our council only charges £55, per bin, per year for the service though:
https://www.babergh.gov.uk/waste-services/garden-waste-and-composting/garden-waste-collection-service/