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.

Extra green bin emptying this winter. Christmas waste collection arrangements to be announced

Plans to empty Green Bins on two additional occasions this winter will be considered on 10th August.

Green waste refusebin

An officer report outlines options to either

  • have two additional green waste collections in November or
  • one additional collection in November with one additional collection in January.

Last year the then Labour led Council was heavily criticised for ending green bin emptying at the end of October. Only a by election win for the Liberal Democrats in the Westfield ward prompted the newly balanced Council to add in an additional collection in January.

The published report fails to indicate how much green waste was collected during this January collection which was also intended to pick up discarded Christmas trees.

Nor is any weekly collection volume data is included.

The same meeting will confirm bin emptying arrangements for the Christmas period. The paper  includes plans to improve recycling collections by reducing from four weeks to three weeks the maximum time that people would need to wait between collections.

Roughly half the city missed one recycling collection during the Christmas period last year and so had to wait 4 weeks between collections.   

The Council have yet to publish details of any pre decision all party discussion meeting. In the absence of such a meeting residents will be able to make representations at the meeting on 10th and also to make written representations.

In its Emergency Budget the new Lib Dem-Conservative Executive confirmed that it would reverse plans to charge for the first green bin per house – built into the council budget by Labour in February. The Emergency Budget also included provision to return two green bin collections over the winter. These winter collections were scrapped by Labour in April 2013.

The report will be considered at a Decision Session on the 10th August by Cllr Andrew Waller, Executive Member for the Environment. Cllr Waller  commented:

“We are responding to residents and helping them to recycle more for the city. Two additional green bin collections over the winter will help people to deal with leaves and woody waste which cannot be easily home composted.

“Residents have been faced with the prospect of putting their garden waste into their grey bins or driving to their nearest Recycling Centre.

“As well as improving the regular green bin collection service, I am also working with officers to look at options to help the recycling efforts of households that do not have a green waste collection. If we are to reach our target to take recycling to over 50% we need a city-wide effort.

“In addition, we are outlining proposals to stop what we saw last Christmas. In almost half the city households were left waiting a month for their recycling to be collected. We need to offer a better basic service to residents than the one they endured under the previous Labour Council.

“The communication plan we are working on engages with residents associations, parish councils and partners to help get the messages out during the autumn.”

NB Plans to introduce charges for green bin emptying were squashed at the last full council meeting

Additional garden waste collection reminder

City of York Council is reminding residents that an additional one off garden waste collection will take place this month between 19 and 30 January.

Green Bin

This will mean the council will be able to collect all the autumn waste and Christmas trees in green bins.

Please note that Christmas trees must be inside the bin, so please cut it up if necessary.

 

The green waste collection will take place on the same day as recyclables are scheduled to be collected.

Look up collections or download a 2015 rubbish and recycling calendar at www.york.gov.uk/refuselookup  or call 01904 551551.

During the winter months residents can 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 sites.

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

Ahead of the new collection season in 2015, households with more than one green wheeled bin can sign up to the additional green bin scheme which operates during the usual garden waste season.   

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

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

Follow @CYCWaste on Twitter, or like CYCWaste on Facebook.

Green bin stickers required from Monday

City of York Council is reminding residents that all households must place their new garden waste sticker on the lid of their green bin by Monday 5 May to ensure continued collections.

 

Garden waste sticker

Garden waste collections started again at the end of March, with fortnightly green bin collections through ‘till the end of October.

The introduction of charging for emptying second and subsequent green bins was a controversial decision of the Labour Council announced last year.

 

Whilst it is a statutory duty for all councils to collect household waste, the separate collection of garden waste is a discretionary service. However, all eligible households in York continue to have one garden waste bin emptied at no additional charge.

To enable crews to identify which bins are ‘free’ and which have been paid for through the additional garden waste bin scheme (£35 annual charge) households were sent a new garden waste sticker to place on the lid of their bin last month.

Residents were given a period of time during April to ensure the sticker was placed on their bin. From 5 May any bins that are not displaying either a ‘free’ or ‘paid for’ sticker will not be emptied.

Households that receive a garden waste collection and would like to have more than one garden waste bin emptied can still subscribe to the additional green bin scheme.

Residents can join the scheme at any time and will benefit from around 16 collections – which equates to less than £2.50 per collection (£35 per year).

Households subscribed to the scheme will receive a separate and unique ‘garden waste scheme sticker’ as part of signing up which will expire one year from when the payment was made. The additional green bin scheme only operates during the usual garden waste season.

To join the scheme 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.

Follow @CYCWaste on Twitter, or like CYCWaste on Facebook.

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E petition started as Council stops green bin collection

Green Bin

This is the last day that the Council will be emptying green bins this winter.

One resident has started an “on line”  petition aimed at getting the service restored.
Click here to access it

The petition reads

We the undersigned petition the council to collect and empty our Green Bins throughout the Year.

Autumn leaves are falling everywhere and gardens are still growing but we have nowhere to put our Green Waste unless we store it until spring or take it at our own expense to Hazel Court.
We have all paid for this service to the council who have short changed us by cutting winter collections

£4 million landfill tax bill hits York as recycling performance crashes

Council performance stats click to access full report

Council performance stats click to access full report

A Council report has revealed that the amount of waste going to landfill in the City is significantly increasing.

As a result York taxpayers face a £3,918,960 bill – up over 17% on budget forecasts.

The fall in performance comes only weeks after a change in collection arrangements brought chaos to some streets in York.

The position is likely to deteriorate further over the winter as the Council is stopping collecting green waste altogether. The winter months accounted for around 18% of this type of waste last year.

The fear is that most of this will now go to landfill.

Historic recycling rates in York. Click to enlarge

Historic recycling rates in York. Click to enlarge

During the period when the Liberal Democrats led the council the amount of recycling and green waste sent for composting had substantially increased each year.

Now, against a background of delays on the longer term Allerton Park waste treatment project, prospects look increasingly bleak for both taxpayers and environmentalists in the City.