Delay to re-start of garden waste collections

To ensure City of York Council can maintain frontline services, including household waste collections, and to protect frontline crews from unnecessary risk, immediate changes will be made to garden waste collections.


The council will be postponing the start of garden waste collections from April, in order to ensure household waste and recycling collections are given priority. These steps are being taken because of extraordinary pressures on frontline services during the outbreak of Covid-19 and a significantly reduced workforce. This decision will free up more frontline crews and vehicles to focus on collecting recycling and household waste in a safe way for frontline staff.

The situation will be kept under constant review, with a view to resuming garden waste collections as soon as practically possible.

Instead, the council is encouraging residents to compost their garden waste at home, and to support residents in this effort, advice and tips for easy composting at home is available on the council website HERE and on the Royal Horticultural Society website HERE.


Whilst collecting household waste is an essential service for public health reasons (a service provided under a public health act), collecting garden waste is not classed as such. Garden waste can be safely composted in the garden where it comes from.

Cllr Paula Widdowson, Executive Member for Environment & Climate Change, said: “This isn’t a decision we’ve taken lightly and this doesn’t mean we don’t want residents to garden. In some cases, this is more important than ever to keep active – particularly when self-isolating.

“We are encouraging residents to recycle and compost where possible and to support this, we have published advice for easy composting at home. If you’re unable to compost, then we’re asking residents to store their garden waste when possible, and we will collect it at a later date.”

Bolstering frontline services:

The council has reallocated resources from other teams, so that it can continue collecting household waste (black bins) and recycling boxes.
This includes redeploying staff from other services such as public realm and highways. The council is also working hard to increase its staff resource, including training a number of First and Pullman bus drivers, plus processing the applications made in response to the council’s urgent recruitment to support the refuse collection service.

Without green waste collections proceeding, additional vehicles will be made available to enable waste crews to socially distance, whilst collecting waste and recycling. Other measures are also being taken to support our waste crews, including wearing appropriate PPE based on the advice of Public Health. This also includes being issued with wipes, hand gel and new gloves every day. At this stage, face masks have not been issued, as per public health advice.

Green bin emptying restarting in York

Charges for extra bins also introduced

“Look out for your new sticker” say Council

Garden Waste bin stickers

Garden Waste bin stickers

City of York Council’s garden waste collections will start again from next week, with fortnightly green bin collections through ‘till the end of October.

The Council says, “From Monday 31 March, all eligible households will continue to have one garden waste bin emptied free of charge. To enable crews to identify these easily all households have been sent a new garden waste sticker to place on the lid of their bin.

Residents will be given a period of time to ensure the sticker is placed on their bin because from 5 May those bins which are not displaying the sticker will not be emptied.

In addition to this, any households who would like to have more than one garden waste bin collected between April and October 2014 still have time to subscribe to the additional green bin scheme before the collection service starts up again at the end of this month.

These households will receive a separate and unique ‘garden waste scheme sticker’ as part of signing up.

Residents can join the scheme at any time, but those who subscribe before the start of April will benefit from around 16 collections during the 2014 collection period – which equates to less than £2.50 per collection (£35 per year)”.

To join the scheme simply call 01904 551551 or ‘apply for it’ via our secure website at https://www.york.gov.uk/DoItOnline/

To find out more about the new stickers or the garden waste subscription scheme visit www.york.gov.uk/recycling

Residents are also able to take additional garden waste to Hazel Court and Towthorpe Household Waste Recycling Centres free of charge in a car. Residents using larger vehicles or trailers will need to apply for permits to use the site.

Home composting is also a great way to manage waste at home and provide nutrient rich compost for gardens. Visit http://www.getcomposting.com/ for further information or to purchase a reduced price home compost bin to get started.

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