Residents choose home composting
Separate garden waste collections are to be stopped in favour of greener home composting. Three thousand free home composters will be given to residents.
A major public consultation has resulted in existing and past service-users rejecting other options for the future of the scheme. Although 783 service users said they would prefer to stick with the current scheme but pay increased charges, more residents (795) opted for garden waste collections to be stopped entirely. Only 258 people were in favour of any other options.
Instead, the council will be offering 3,000 free home composting bins, providing gardeners with a low-cost alternative to waste collections, with the added benefit of free compost for use on their own gardens.
Cllr Nick Botterill, cabinet member for the environment, says: “Surprisingly, there appears to be no great enthusiasm for keeping the garden waste collections. Most keen gardeners are very aware of the environment and that is reflected in the outcome of the consultation, with 667 people who responded to the consultation saying they were interested in composting.
'Driving large lorries round the borough’s streets to collect a small amount of garden waste clearly makes less ecological sense than each garden owner recycling their own garden waste.
“As a result, we will be stopping separate garden waste collections. After we saw the consultation results, we decided to do our bit too by recycling the funding for garden waste collections into providing free compost bins for residents.”
Free composters will be delivered, free of charge, to the first 3,000 people who apply. Applications are being sent to all current service users.
If residents have large items that are too big to recycle (such as tree prunings), or more than five sacks of garden waste, they will still be able to book a bulky waste collection from the council, for a small charge.
Garden waste recycling facilities at Smugglers Way and Cringle Dock will also still be available.
Compost bins and bulky waste collections can be ordered by phoning the cleaner, greener helpline on 020 8753 1100.
