South Gloucestershire Council

Published: 31/03/2014

Nearly 1,000 householders per day are subscribing to the service, which offers residents a fortnightly kerbside garden waste collection for a fee of £36 per year.

Today’s figures mean that the service is already close to reaching its expected participation rate of approximately 23,000 subscribers.

The subscription service is one of a number of changes being introduced as part of South Gloucestershire’s revised Local Waste Strategy 2013-19, which was adopted by the council last year following consultation with residents.

The strategy aims to increase opportunities for residents to recycle, while also helping the council to balance service costs against income at a time when all local authorities are receiving less money from government.

As part of the strategy, kerbside recycling services are being extended to include small electrical items, mixed plastics and Tetrapak cartons for the first time.

New recycling services are also to be introduced for residents of flats.

The garden waste collection is an opt-in service and residents who do not wish to subscribe have a number of low-cost or free alternatives for disposing of their garden waste.

These include garden waste sacks for those who require only occasional collections. Sacks are available from council libraries and Country Stores, High Street, Marshfield at a price of £2 each, which includes kerbside collection.

Residents are also being encouraged to consider the free and environmentally-friendly option of composting, which ensures that garden waste and uncooked kitchen waste can be returned to the garden as a free soil improver.

Residents can order home compost bins at competitive rates from the council’s partner www.getcomposting.com and as part of the drive to increase composting, residents moving into new-build homes in the district will also be offered a voucher for a new free home compost bin.

Residents can also continue to dispose of garden waste free of charge at their local Sort It!* centre. As part of the changes being introduced, Sort It!* centres will have new traffic management measures as well as traffic cameras to allow residents to check how busy their local centre is before setting out.

South Gloucestershire already has one of the highest recycling rates among unitary authorities and the changes aim to build on this success by extending the recycling service to include more types of waste.

Further information on garden waste disposal options, including online booking for the green waste service and ad hoc sack collection, are available on the council’s website at www.southglos.gov.uk/gardenwasteservice