Charged for garden waste

Bit of a thread necro on the go, apologies for anyone who gets upset with such things :p

Had a letter though advising the Council are going to start charging for garden waste collection around here. Interested to see quite a few people in this thread advising a couple of years ago theirs was free, I wonder if that's still the case? I'm surprised it took as long as it did for the Council here to start charging. I would assume most Councils do charge for it these days?

I doubt i'll be paying it, I don't tend to use it very often so will probably bag it up with the general waste or collect it all and do a single trip to the tip every couple of months with a boot full.
 
Over here in Derbyshire it's part of the bin collection, one week it's the blck bin (general waste) then the next week it's blue bin (recyclables) and green bin (compostable waste which is potato peelings, coffee grounds etc.) and it's one the council tax bill as refuse collections.

If they were to change it to be chargeable for the green bin then I would expect them to pick up all my garden waste and not just 1 green bin every fortnight (have a massive hedge around my property which takes 4 or 5 bins to clear the clippings).
 
Its in with the rubbish collection here (Cheshire West & Chester). Alternating weeks with the non-recyclable waste, except at Christmas when they are expecting little gardening and more rubbish !

Charging would be down to individual councils. I think in rural and suburban area most properties will need a garden rubbish bin so it will be costed into the annual budget, whereas its less of a need in inner city areas: the administration involved for the fewer cases probably justifies a separate charge.
 
In Lincs the SKDC charge around £30 a year for green bin collection.

I think it is fair to charge as not everyone needs or uses a green bin
 
We just got this in West Oxon too. Very annoying. I now just burn it, take it to the tip, or throw small amounts in the normal bins.
 
Werewolf said:
The running cost of a lamp post isn't just the post/bulb and electricity, but the number of times they'll have to be serviced, IIRC LED bulbs should last longer than CFL and other types (how long depends on the bulb type).

So if you only look at the saving in electricity (which is where a lot of the "it'll take years to pay for itself" arguments come in), you only get part of the story, even if it just saves a couple of visits for replacement bulbs over the space of 10 years that is a fairly big chunk of money (mainly in the time of the maintenance crews).

I think one of the reasons they sometimes change the whole post rather than just the bulb is that the lamp posts probably have a recommended design life, or may no longer be made in that style and thus no spares, or the compatible spares are priced such that it's not worth fitting them to a post that is already 10, 20 or 30 years old.
You also have the logistical issues involved - it's probably cheaper to replace a bunch of older model posts and cut the number of different types of spares/designs in use than to keep the parts for them all (especially as newer units can include additional features as standard that had to be retrofitted to older ones).

Our local council replaced a lot of the street lamps around here about 10 years ago, taking down what were obviously older models, and I was slightly surprised when upon reporting one (of the previous generation) posts that was near me for being damaged, the council had a team out within a couple of hours who cut it down (and sealed the stump), then about a week later a team fitted one of the latest models that the council were using. I expected them to simply replace the damaged inspection hatch and repair the wiring.
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They changed 50%+ of the posts due to the LED light unit not fitting onto those posts. The posts that they didn't replace still had the old light unit replaced for the new LED light unit. They simply did not just change the bulbs for LED bulbs like you would at home. Also they do not dim or anything with the level of darkness, they only come on when dark and go off when light. There was loads of complaints from folk not being able to see on certain busy roads, so the council ended up replacing some of the units on some roads with brighter LED light units. No cranking up the dimmer switch in sight.
 
IIIRC the council tax is meant to cover "household waste", which could be defined as the waste from the household, whilst garden waste is not from the household but the land/property or something.

I'm not sure if there is any legal requirement for the council to collect garden waste as I remember when they didn't, I think they brought it in partly to save on how busy the tips were, and the fact they could sell it for composting.
 
No garden waste charge in Greenwich, we get three wheelie bins, green for food and garden waste, blue for recyclable and black for general rubbish.

And then we can add bags as well, clear for recyclable and black for general waste, but cannot for the garden/food waste.
 
I exclusively go out of my way to fly tip every last bit of household and garden waste I produce... It takes ages but it is the only way to teach the council a lesson!
 
26 quid a year for mine

most bizarre thing is nobody else around me looks like they have paid...so it must cost the council way more than the annual fee just to send them round to my house one a fortnight!
 
Still free here although it may not be for long because the council are putting words about such as bankruptcy at the moment and are looking at making even more drastic cuts than they have already. The thing is that they demand that food waste also goes in the garden waste bin so would need to change something to make us pay for garden waste collection. They are also looking at 3 weekly bin collections (we are already on 2 weekly collections) and while the landfill bin and garden waste bins would be fine there is no way we could make the recycling bins last 3 weeks.
 
you have to pay here as well ,but a lawn mow and hedge trim isnt going to fit in a bin anyway ,so just chuck in a tonne builders bag and take to tip( if compost bins full)
 
£44 per year here but if you ask me it's worth every penny, 240ltr Wheely bin is roughly 10 rubble sacks full of shredded tree clippings
 
£26 a year but they only collect fortnightly between March-October. They give you a brown wheelie bin when you "subscribe" but they give you a new sticker each year when you pay - no sticker no collection.

Me - I just put garden waste in normal general waste wheelie bin. It still rots away so nothing to feel guilty about.
 
BigBoy said:
£44 per year here but if you ask me it's worth every penny, 240ltr Wheely bin is roughly 10 rubble sacks full of shredded tree clippings
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We just renewed. £35 quid for a year or £45 for two years, so we bought the latter.

Less than 50p a week, and we pretty much fill our bin right up between collections. Costs more than that to take it to the dump by car.
 
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