Councils are facing a backlash from residents over moves to charge for green waste collection.

Over the past year, more and more local authorities have started charging for green waste collections in order to help plug holes in their budgets

In York, Labour have included a cut of £250,000 over the next 2 years in the costs of collecting green waste. The green bins have been popular in York with most residents in sub urban areas routinely using the service.

The cuts could be made either by discontinuing the service all together (and perhaps providing composting bins to residents) or by charging for the bins as Labour & Conservative Councils are doing elsewhere in the Country (see below).

Either way, when added to the rearrangement of collection rounds (different types of waste will in future be collected on different days of the week) and the closure of Household Waste Sites, it means significant change for many York residents.

If the Council are to go ahead with such a proposal then they should be consulting residents now, not leaving it to the last minute as happened with the Beckfield Lane issue.

Residents in Newcastle, Melton in Leicestershire and Bracknell Forest in Berkshire are the latest to come out against the charges, which they claim are equivalent to a stealth tax.

Newcastle

In Newcastle, only 18,000 of a possible 75,000 residents have signed up to a charged-for garden waste collection service which is being introduced in the city in May 2012. This will see residents pay £20 a year to have their green waste collected. The move has been criticised by both the local Friends of the Earth group and Liberal Democrats – which claims that the Labour-run council is ‘slashing’ neighbourhood services.

The council’s budget document for 2012/13 acknowledges that there is a risk that not everyone who currently receives the service will want to pay for it and that recycling rates may suffer as a result.
Rob Nichols, head of environmental services at the council, said: “We recognise the importance of the environment but realistically people need to do their little bit. People are sharing a bin and others are happy to take green waste to one of the three recycling centres we’ve got.”

He added: “Many other local types of council already charge, such as Northumberland, and some don’t even provide it at all. We hope to not see an increase in landfill.”

Newcastle charges http://tinyurl.com/Green-waste-charges-Newcastle

Melton

Green waste is no longer collected by the Council in Melton. From April, residents have had to pay an annual £32 subscription fee to waste firm Biffa if they want to receive fortnight collection of one garden waste bin – a service which was previously free. The Council is Conservative controlled.

A petition calling for the charge to be dropped, mounted by local resident Rob Watson, has secured 1,800 signatures. This is in addition to an e-petition which has attracted 22 signatures.

A spokesman for the council told letsrecycle.com: “Obviously there are people who are upset with the service. There has been a petition which has attracted over 1,000 signatures, which means there has to be a council meeting to address it”.

Bracknell Forest

Meanwhile, in Bracknell Forest – also Conservative – residents who purchased a brown garden waste bin from the council on or after December 5 2011 have had to pay £26 annual fee to continue having their green waste collected from April 2. All residents who purchased a bin before then are exempt from paying the charge for a year.

In the past residents have only been charged £30.75 for a brown bin, on the understanding that they would continue to receive free collections – which has caused particular concern among residents. One told the Bracknell Forest Standard last month that the charge amounted to a ‘stealth tax’.

Trend

Commenting on the trend, Joy Blizzard, chair of the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC), told letsrecycle.com that she understood why councils were moving to charged for collections for green waste.

She said: It is not like it is the only option for composters to recycle green waste – there is also home composting and recycling centres.

Earlier this year, North East Lincolnshire scrapped plans to charge for garden waste collection following fears that the move could reduce its recycling rate by 7%