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Meeting: |
Economy, Place, Access, and Transport Scrutiny Committee |
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Meeting date: |
28 January 2025 |
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Report of: |
James Gilchrist, Director of Environment, Transport and Planning |
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Portfolio of: |
Executive Member for the Environment and Climate Emergency (Cllr J Kent) |
Garden Waste Collections: Review of Implementation of Charging Arrangements
Summary
1. Waste Services are responsible for the collection of all household waste across the city, as well as operating a commercial waste service for business customers.
2. Members have asked for a briefing on the collection of garden waste. This report compares previous collection methods with current practices and evaluates the performance of garden waste collections.
3. This report focusses on the implementation of the fully chargeable garden waste subscription scheme which was launched in July 2024 with an operational go live date of 5th August 2024.
Service Background (Garden Waste)
4. The separate kerbside collection of garden waste commenced in York in 2005. When the kerbside garden waste service was introduced in 2005, the Council did not offer it to some terraced areas, predominantly due to the common misconception that terraced properties typically have paved yards instead of gardens.
5. In April 2013, following a period of public consultation, Cabinet approved a charge for 'additional garden bins' only. Residents were entitled to free collection of their first garden bin, whilst additional bins were charged at £35 each. This charge increased annually, reaching £46.50 per bin for the 2024 garden waste season.
6. Before this scheme was replaced with the new fully chargeable garden waste subscription scheme, the ‘additional bin scheme’ had 1,433 subscriptions in the 2024 season and generated £60,961.50 in income. All administration of the scheme, including letters and labels were produced in house. The scheme closed in May 2024.
7. St. Nick’s also provide a garden waste collection service to some of the properties they collect from in the city centre. This service is excluded from the garden waste subscription scheme and remains free for residents due to the very low level of garden waste presented for collection.
8. Until July 2024, the garden waste service was provided free of charge to approximately 66,163 households across the city. Collections were undertaken on a fortnightly basis (for a 40 week season) across the city and residents could present multiple green wheelie bins for collection (the majority of green bins are 180 litre bins; however, there are a number of 240 litre bins in circulation across the city).
9. As the garden waste subscription scheme was introduced part way through the year, everyone who had already had an existing ‘additional garden bin’ subscription, were contacted proactively and provided with a replacement sticker for their bin and transferred over to the new scheme (equivalent to the number of subscriptions held).
10. In recent years, the Council has not been able to offer garden waste collections to new housing developments (e.g. parts of Germany Beck, Langley Gate development, etc.) as there was no capacity on the operational rounds to take on these additional collections.
Decision to Introduce a Garden Waste Subscription Scheme
11. The decision to implement a fully chargeable garden waste subscription scheme was taken by Executive in January 2024 and agreed at full Council, as part of the budget process, in February 2024. The collection of garden waste is not a statutory service under the ‘Controlled Waste Regulations 2012’, therefore local authorities do not have to provide a garden waste collection and the service is not directly included in the Council Tax bill.
12. Executive approved the introduction of an annual garden waste subscription scheme with a fee of £46.50 in 2024. Executive also approved a 50% discount for residents in receipt of Council Tax Support. Delegated authority was given to the Director of Transport, Environment and Planning and in consultation with the Chief Finance Officer, to use the Waste Reserve and take all steps necessary to procure, award, and enter into contracts to deliver and effectively implement the new service.
13. Executive also approved, as a one-off, a free collection of garden waste bins from those households not wishing to subscribe to the new garden waste collection service (it is likely residents will need to register for this collection which will happen in late 2025).
Development of the Garden Waste Subscription Scheme
14. An internal Project Board was established to take forward the implementation of the garden waste subscription scheme. The Board involved representatives from Environmental Services, ICT, Customer Services, Communications, Business Intelligence and Web Services. The team worked tirelessly to deliver the garden waste subscription scheme and ensure the service could go live from summer 2024.
15. The scheme was developed to provide residents with multiple options regarding the implementation of the garden waste subscriptions. This approach aimed to ensure flexibility and accommodate varying needs. Residents were given the opportunity to:
· Subscribe to the service at the full fee of £46.50 (pro-rata’d to £21 from 5th August to 6th December 2024).
· Subscribe to the service at a 50% discounted fee if the resident(s) were in receipt of Council Tax Support. The reduced fee would have been £23.25 (pro-rata’d to £10.50 from 5th August to 6th December 2024).
· Share a subscription with a neighbour (to reduce the cost of the service).
· Purchase a home composter from one of the Council’s Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRC’s) at a specially discounted price (for a one-off fee of £12.75) to compost at home.
· Take garden waste materials to the HWRC’s, free of charge.
16. To ensure the effective delivery of the scheme, online forms were developed to enable residents to subscribe to the service. The Council is currently transitioning to a new customer relationship management system (Granicus), and the garden waste subscription scheme was the first web form implemented on this platform. This transition required significant time investment from Waste Services, ICT, Customer Services, Business Intelligence and Web Services.
Communications Campaign
17.
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The garden waste subscription scheme was open to the 66,163 households that were in receipt of a kerbside garden waste collection service. All eligible households received an information pack which contained a garden waste letter, information leaflet, a set of frequently asked questions and a separate recycling leaflet. The envelope was clearly marked with important information about your garden waste collections. Please see image below:
Image 1: Welcome pack for GWSS 2024 season
18. A communications plan was delivered from early July 2024 to mid-August 2024 to ensure that the message was effectively communicated to all residents. This included: print, broadcast and digital and non-digital campaigns. The following is an example of some of the methods used to promote the garden waste subscription scheme, including their effectiveness:
Various paid posts were promoted through Facebook between 8th July and 5th August. These achieved 355,803 impressions and a reach of 196,337. The posts had 762 reactions, 2,660 comments, 284 shares, engagement was 52,860 and 38,243 clicks to Council subscription webpage.
‘X’ (formerly Twitter)
Various posts were promoted through ‘X’ between 8th July and 5th August. These achieved 22,629 impressions, 914 engagements with 310 clicks to Council subscription webpage.
Various posts were promoted across the platform and it achieved 3,958 reach, 2,867 impressions and 2,079 reels were played.
‘Next Door’
Various posts were promoted across the platform and it achieved 14,165 impressions.
York Press
A front-page strapline and full page advert was printed on 10th July 2024 with a further full page advert printed on 13th July 2024. Although no exact figures can be produced for who saw the advert the readership of the York press is 83% among adults.
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Radio adverts:
A radio advert was recorded for Greatest Hits radio for 3 weeks and was aired 10 times a day which has a reach of 43,404. The same advert was run on YO1 radio and aired 480 times between 8th and 28th July. The station has a weekly audience of 61,500 listeners across York and Selby and a reach of 27%.
An advert for York Mix radio was recorded and aired 210 times during the same 3 weeks campaign period. The station has 105,000 listeners per month.
Digital advertising:
Digital advertisements ran between 8th and 28th July on yO1 radio which had 69,687 impressions and 87 clicks. Adverts also ran on York Mix including 168 ads between 8th and 28th July and this delivered 210 ads in total (42 for free).
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York Mumbler
A bespoke digital campaign was run by York Mumbler for 3 weeks including Instagram stories which generated a 2,100 reach, newsletters sent to 5,334 subscribers (achieving a 48.4% open rate for newsletter 1 and 50.9% for newsletter 2) and a reach of over 20,900 on Facebook.
Non Digital Communications
40 printed posters with information about the garden waste subscription scheme were delivered to local Councillors and Parish Councils to share in wards. Posters were erected in 50 locations by the Communities Team and Local Area Co-ordinators and posters were also displayed at 16 Libraries and Explore centres across the city.
19. In May 2024 the Council introduced a waste edition of the ‘Our City‘ e-newsletter, which is distributed through e-mail via the Gov Delivery (Granicus) platform. The first edition was sent on 20 May 2024 to 32,222 recipients. It had a 65% open rate (the national benchmark is 42%) and a unique click rate to garden waste webpages of 8% (the national benchmark is 6%).
20. A special waste e-newsletter was issued on 8 July to complement the hard copy information packs sent out via Royal Mail. The e-newsletter was sent to 33,251 addresses. The open rate of 76% compares very favourably to the national average of 42%. The newsletter achieved a click rate of 25%. Further e-newsletters were issued on 23rd July and 5th August with emails attracting a greater than 73% open rate. Only 57 people unsubscribed from future updates.
21. The communications campaign for the garden waste subscription scheme was awarded as the digital communications campaign winner in the Granicus 2024 Digital Public Sector Awards.
Take Up of the Garden Waste Subscription Scheme
22. Subscriptions were opened to the public on 8th July 2024, following an initial testing phase. Over 32,200 garden waste subscriptions were sold in advance of the operational ‘go live’ date of 5th August 2024.
23. By the close of the 2024 season on 31st October 2024, a total of 39,301 subscriptions were purchased, reflecting a subscription uptake of 59.4%. Please note that these figures include the circa 1,434 households that previously paid for a 2nd or 3rd garden waste bin under ‘additional garden bin’ scheme.
24. Residents subscribed to the garden waste scheme, either online or through the Council’s contact centre. 84% of residents subscribed online with the remaining 16% subscribing over the phone through the contact centre. More than half of the total subscribers needed some form of help from customer services, before, during or after subscribing online.
25. The garden waste subscription scheme generated a total income of £824,842 (this figure includes 1,434 households that paid for an additional garden waste bin under the previous scheme). Of the 39,301 subscriptions, 2,167 subscriptions were purchased at the discounted rate (50% discount) for those residents in receipt of Council Tax Support (CTS).
26. The costs associated with the set up and operational running of the garden waste subscription scheme was £195k (this covers ICT development costs, communications costs, additional customer services staff, licence production and postage etc). Please note that the figure above does not include the significant amount of staff resource that was required across Waste Services and Corporate Services to be redirected to deliver the scheme. In addition, please note that we envisage communications costs to reduce in 2025 onwards as we transition towards e-mail as the preferred method of communication.
27. The wards with the highest garden waste subscription rates (as a percentage of eligible properties in their wards) were Copmanthorpe (74%), Rural West York (73%), and Bishopthorpe (70%). In contrast, the wards with the lowest subscription rates were Westfield (43%), Clifton (41%), and Guildhall (30%). However, the highest absolute number of subscriptions was recorded in the Haxby and Wigginton ward. A full breakdown of garden waste subscriptions, is included in Annex 1.
Operational Analysis of the Scheme and its impact on Related Services
28. Following successful subscription, residents received sticker(s) through the post to be affixed on the back of their garden waste bin(s).
Image 2: Subscription sticker 2024 season
29. During the weeks commencing Monday 5th and Monday 12th August 2024, crews were instructed to empty all garden waste bins. If any garden waste bins did not have a valid sticker, crews affixed an “Oops sticker” to the bin as a last visual reminder to residents that they needed to subscribe if they wished to continue to have their
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garden waste collected at the kerbside.
Image 3: ‘Oops’ sticker 2024 season
30. From the week commencing 19th August 2024, all garden waste bins without valid stickers were not collected by the collection crews.
31. To address the expected increased demand for contact through the Council’s contact centre, 5 temporary Customer Service Representatives (CSR’s) were employed for a period of 3 months. Demand was greater than expected, therefore additional CSR’s were hired for 4 weeks. Members of the core customer services team were also deployed which created some other service pressures.
32. The table below details the v]call volumes to the garden waste subscription scheme line from 1 July to 31 August 2024. The majority of the 10,000 calls were received within the first two weeks of the scheme opening on 8 July when only 5 staff were in situ. 49% of calls were unanswered in July.
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Month |
Calls offered |
Calls handled |
Average speed of answer (hh:mm:ss) |
Average handling time (hh:mm:ss) |
Abandon % |
Service level % |
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July |
10458[1] |
5317 |
00:09:13 |
00:06:12 |
49.1% |
35.0% |
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August |
1641 |
1637 |
00:00:11 |
00:05:45 |
0.2% |
97.8% |
Table 1: Volume of calls received to CSR July – August 2024
33. For 2025, additional temporary contact centre staff will be employed for the start of garden waste subscription.
34. Whilst the introduction of the garden waste subscription scheme has been broadly positive, there were a number of issues identified in the subscription process as payments were opened to the public. This led to an increase in work for the ‘back office’ team in Waste Services. These included:
· Payment failures/cancelled transactions on the Granicus form leading to increased demand on manual processing of cheques.
· ‘Ghost subscriptions’ created in Waste Services internal system. If cancelled or incomplete, a subscription was still created which prevented another being purchased or a discount applied.
· ‘Stuck’ payments – these occurred when a licence remained in 'held' draft status in Granicus. This happened when the licence is paid for, but the background process is not completed by returning to the browser, preventing the API from triggering correctly.
· Quarantined Licences in Permiserv (provider of stickers) due to address issues and ‘typo’s’ in the Granicus form completed by residents.
· Property not on a garden waste round in Waste Services internal system.
35. There were limited incidences where the garden waste collection schedule failed to display correctly, especially where a resident checked their collections a number of times. This is due to a ‘caching issue’. The ICT team addressed these issues by clearing the system cache overnight to resolve issues displaying collection data.
36. Given the high demand for subscriptions, it was necessary to work quickly to both understand the causes of these errors and develop workarounds. The ICT team, along with the temporary staff brought into the Contact Centre to handle subscriptions, played a critical role in this process, providing fantastic and timely support to the Waste Team. On average, implementing the workarounds detailed in Annex 2, required at peak times, 4 to 6 hours of an Environmental Services Officer’s time each day.
37. During the subscription process, we identified public caretaking activities such as residents maintaining grass verges and community gardens. Waste Services and Public Realm assessed requests for free subscriptions on a case-by-case basis and, where appropriate, took the maintenance back in-house. For areas where in-house maintenance is not feasible (informal community gardens for example), Waste Services have made reasonable adjustments and issued a limited number of free subscriptions.
38. During the subscription process, some residents with 100% Council Tax relief due to severe mental impairment (SMI) approached us for clarification as they are fully exempt from Council Tax and this was not included in the discount criteria. This has been addressed for 2025 (please see later in the report).
39. During the early part of 2024 (prior to the launch of the subscription scheme), there were on average a report of 9 missed garden waste bins per week. Following the implementation of the scheme, the reported occurrences of missed garden waste bins increased significantly, averaging 30 per week. This is likely due to residents feeling more motivated to report such issues now they are paying for the service and a re-collection is possible (it is worth noting that the same collection crews are collecting garden waste bins as part of the subscription scheme so it indicates the propensity to report a missed collection is linked to paying for a service).
40. Waste Services team observed a slight increase in the ordering of garden waste bins following the launch of the scheme in August 2024. Additionally, reports of damaged containers remained stable after the introduction of the charge.
Chart 1: Number of garden waste bins delivered
41. A total of 679 sticker re-prints were requested from the go live date. The majority of sticker replacements were attributed to bin damage reported by collection crews. It should be noted that damage to garden waste bins remain notably higher compared to refuse bins, primarily due to the nature of the waste placed in them. Garden waste bins are often overfilled and heavy, leading to breakage during collections. This behaviour is consistent with common practices observed among other local authorities nationwide.
42. Concern was expressed that moving to a garden waste subscription scheme could result in an increase in complaints. The information below shows complaints between July and November for the last three years where you can see a considerable decrease in the number of complaints in 2024/25 regarding Waste Services (these are the number of complaints at all grades):-
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Year |
Jul |
Aug |
Sept |
Oct |
Nov |
Total |
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2024/25 |
46 |
60 |
57 |
63 |
46 |
272 |
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2023/24 |
146 |
100 |
53 |
31 |
33 |
363 |
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2022/23 |
174 |
184 |
137 |
107 |
69 |
671 |
Table 2: Total complaints regarding Waste Services Jul – Nov 2022-2024
Impact of the Transition to a Garden Waste Subscription Scheme
43. When the garden waste subscription scheme was introduced, there was concern expressed over what would happen to garden waste for those households that did not subscribe to the garden waste subscription scheme. The information below addresses areas of concern expressed.
Home Composting
44. In the financial year 2023/24, the Council sold 165 home composters exclusively from Hazel Court HWRC. However, between April and the end of November 2024, a total of 240 home composters were sold across both HWRC sites. The compost bins were sold at a specially discounted price of £12.75 each. In the 2025 season, the price per compost bin will increase to £15 to ensure that the Council covers the cost of the unit price of the bins.
Fly Tipping
45. The service did not observe an increase in the volume of reports of fly-tipping of garden waste, with a total of 43 reports received between June and October 2024. In fact, there were 4 fewer reports in 2024 compared to the same period in the previous year. A full breakdown of fly-tipping of garden waste from the Business Intelligence Team is included at Annex 3.
Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRC’s)
46. In May 2024, the HWRC at Hazel Court changed its opening times and has been closed on Wednesdays since 8th May 2024.
47. As it was impossible to forecast demand on the HWRC’s around the introduction of the garden waste subscription scheme, pro-active traffic management arrangements were put in place at both Hazel Court HWRC and Towthorpe HWRC. The traffic management arrangements were different at each site with three-way traffic lights deployed at Towthorpe (2 weeks) and traffic marshals at Hazel Court (4 weeks). The arrangements were deployed for 2 additional weeks at Hazel Court as this is the busier site.
48. During the 8-week period following the introduction of the garden waste subscription scheme (5th August to the end of September), we observed 2,215 fewer visits in 2024 compared to the same period in 2023 (30,239 visits in 2024 compared to 32,454 visits in 2023). Please see the table below for the number of visits per week since the start of the 2024 season:
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Hazel Court |
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2024 (week commencing) |
2023 |
2024 |
Difference |
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29/04/2024 |
3,909 |
4,364 |
455 |
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06/05/2024 |
4,024 |
4,642 |
618 |
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13/05/2024 |
4,427 |
4,509 |
82 |
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20/05/2024 |
4,469 |
4,264 |
-205 |
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27/05/2024 |
5,134 |
4,792 |
-342 |
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03/06/2024 |
4,527 |
4,600 |
73 |
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10/06/2024 |
3,957 |
4,010 |
53 |
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17/06/2024 |
4,383 |
4,334 |
-49 |
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24/06/2024 |
4,874 |
4,784 |
-90 |
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01/07/2024 |
4,716 |
4,507 |
-209 |
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08/07/2024 |
4,372 |
4,014 |
-358 |
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15/07/2024 |
4,193 |
4,658 |
465 |
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22/07/2024 |
5,012 |
5,213 |
201 |
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29/07/2024 |
Data error[2] |
4,919 |
N/A |
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05/08/2024 |
5,062 |
4,847 |
-215 |
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12/08/2024 |
4,654 |
4,493 |
-161 |
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19/08/2024 |
4,835 |
4,636 |
-199 |
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26/08/2024 |
5,155 |
4,763 |
-392 |
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02/09/2024 |
4,423 |
3,719 |
-704 |
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09/09/2024 |
4,387 |
3,627 |
-760 |
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16/09/2024 |
3,938 |
4,154 |
216 |
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TOTAL |
90,451 |
88,930 |
-1,521 |
Table 3: ANPR details for site users of Hazel Court HWRC April – September 2024 (note: Where there is a data error (i.e. camera system was not operational, the week’s data for both years has not been counted to ensure there is fair comparison).
Garden Waste and Other Tonnages
49. Between 2020 and 2024, over 70,000 tonnes of garden waste were collected through kerbside collection, compared to over 180,000 tonnes of general refuse collected during the same period. Please note that garden waste tonnage fluctuations generally reflect the weather conditions year to year (as evidenced in the table below).
50. Residual waste shows a decrease in tonnage, indicating that residents who did not subscribe to the scheme were not using refuse bins to dispose of their garden waste as a matter of course. The table below details the annual tonnages for the last five seasons:
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Year |
Garden Waste Tonnes |
Refuse Waste Tonnes |
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March 20 - Dec 20 |
13,242 |
37,750 |
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March 21 - Dec 21 |
15,341 |
38,179 |
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March 22 - Dec 22 |
13,922 |
36,037 |
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March 23 - Dec 23 |
15,452 |
35,233 |
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March 24 – Dec 24 |
13,791 |
33,273 |
Table 4: KPI tonnages of Garden Waste and Refuse Waste collected at Kerbside, 2020-24
51. The chart below shows a drop in garden waste tonnages collected at the kerbside following the introduction of the scheme in August 2024, compared to the same period in the 2023 season (however, as noted in para 48 above, there is considerable annual fluctuation due to weather conditions and the 2024 figure is in line with comparable figures for 2020 and 2022).
Chart 2: Comparison of garden waste tonnages 2023 versus 2024.
52. Tonnages of garden waste collected through HWRC’s have slightly increased over time with the largest rises seen at Towthorpe. Between 2021 and 2024 7,634 tonnes of garden waste was collected.
|
Towthorpe |
Hazel Court |
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|
|
2021 |
2022 |
2023 |
2024 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 |
2024 |
|
Jan |
|
27.88 |
34.48 |
48.44 |
|
91.02 |
82.08 |
62.38 |
|
Feb |
|
23.78 |
64.64 |
64.64 |
|
71.98 |
105.3 |
102.42 |
|
Mar |
|
44.26 |
59.92 |
69.17 |
|
133.92 |
67.26 |
94.42 |
|
April |
56.28 |
36.44 |
71.94 |
91.24 |
107.66 |
100.14 |
93.02 |
98.2 |
|
May |
33.28 |
61.72 |
82.52 |
107.43 |
89.2 |
113.12 |
140.26 |
138.78 |
|
Jun |
69.74 |
53.24 |
87.08 |
101.86 |
153.8 |
129.86 |
120.44 |
175.38 |
|
Jul |
72.04 |
65.66 |
78.54 |
61.36 |
156.8 |
127.92 |
134.5 |
163.4 |
|
Aug |
79.08 |
72.46 |
74.48 |
91.1 |
161.06 |
120.28 |
162.06 |
181.82 |
|
Sep |
59.72 |
55.66 |
97.9 |
77.22 |
130.46 |
111.06 |
143.94 |
149.74 |
|
Oct |
38.12 |
53.78 |
44.24 |
63.96 |
108.78 |
72.3 |
119.08 |
117.84 |
|
Nov |
23.6 |
49.3 |
34.26 |
61.06 |
85.78 |
82.3 |
89.46 |
93.16 |
|
Dec |
24.66 |
38.96 |
51.96 |
22.96 |
72.86 |
43.52 |
53.24 |
58.42 |
|
Total: |
456.52 |
583.14 |
781.96 |
860.44 |
1066.4 |
1197.42 |
1310.64 |
1435.96 |
Table 5: Tonnages of garden waste collected through HWRC’s 2021-24.
Lessons Learnt
53. As outlined earlier in the report, there was some confusion over eligibility for discounts in respect of the garden waste subscription scheme when it launched in 2024. In 2025, the 50% discount will apply for residents who are (i) in receipt of Council Tax Support and (ii) registered as SMI (severe mental impairment). Wording has been updated on the online form and in the FAQ’s document issued to subscribers. In addition to this, a letter was issued to some residents in January who claimed for discount in 2024 when they were not eligible.
54. For the 2025 season, further improvements have been made to the online forms which should reduce the amount of intervention required within the Waste team to apply workarounds. Full integration to the Council Tax system through an API is not available in 2025 but is on the roadmap for future developments.
55. ICT are working to rectify the ‘caching’ issue in respect on the online calendar so that the calendar will show the correct information for all collections regardless of when some subscribes (auto-population).
56. The Waste Team will need to administer the bin request that come from the additional 216 properties that will be added for garden waste collections in 2025. This is likely to require a level of manual intervention that will not be required for those properties that already subscribed in 2024. Processes have been developed to manage this requirement within current resources.
Garden Waste Subscription Scheme 2025
57. The subscription process opened to residents on 13th January 2025. All subscribers will receive either an e-mail or a hard copy letter (depending on their stated preference) outlining the charge for the 2025 together with a leaflet about the garden waste subscription scheme, an FAQ document and a handy recycling guide.
58. The new garden waste season will start on 3rd March 2025 and will operate for 40 weeks ending on 5th December 2025. The subscription fee in 2025 will be £49 (with a discount to £24.50 for those residents in receipt of Council Tax Support or registered as SMI).
59. An additional 216 properties that have never been served by a kerbside garden waste service will be offered the opportunity to subscribe to the scheme. Dedicated letters and an information pack about garden waste collections will be sent to these properties advising them of this development.
60. In 2025, the garden waste sticker will change colour (to pink) and the sticker colour will change each year to make it easy for operational crews to identify valid subscriptions. An ‘oops’ sticker will be used again in 2025 as a visual reminder to residents of the need to subscribe.
61. In 2025, the Council is seeking to roll out ‘bags to bins’ to a number of households across the city. Therefore, it is hoped that in the future we may be able to extend the garden waste service further to these and any other suitable properties (either for the 2025 or most likely the 2026 garden waste scheme).
Conclusion
62. The garden waste subscription scheme has been a great success. It provides residents with the opportunity to participate in kerbside collections of garden waste whilst there are other alternatives open to the public if they choose not to subscribe. A great deal of hard work was undertaken by many officers across the Council is establishing the scheme and this should be recognised. The sign-up rate of 55% of households and over 39,000 subscriptions compares very favourably with other local authorities and has generated an income of £824k which can be used to support other Council services.
Recommendation
63. To note the update on the implementation of charging arrangements for garden waste collections.
64. Reason: To ensure the Committee remain updated on garden waste collections.
Contact details
For further information please contact the authors of this report:
Authors:
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Name(s): |
· Head of Environmental Services - Ben Grabham · Strategy and Development Manager - Suzanne Middleton · Business Manager for Environmental Services – Rebecca Copley · Environmental Services Officer – Ewa Zielinska |
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Service Area: |
Transport, Environment and Planning |
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Contact: |
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Report approved: |
Yes |
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Date: |
14.01.2025 |
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Background
https://www.wastedataflow.org/reports/default.aspx
Annexes
Annex 1 - Breakdown of garden waste subscriptions.
Annex 2 - Waste Team workarounds.
Annex 3 - Fly-tipping of Green Waste Jan 2023 to Oct 2024