Brown bin collections to restart in May

Published: 27 April 2020

A reduced brown bin service will begin for residents from Tuesday 5th May. 

As a result of coronavirus, our free brown (garden and food waste) bin collections were suspended in March to allow our teams to continue collecting black (general waste) and blue (recycling) bins.  

Since then, teams have been working hard to determine how we can practically reintroduce the service while still adhering to government guidelines and having reduced numbers of staff. Thanks to their work, a limited brown bin service will resume next week. 

Teams will aim to collect brown bins on residents’ usual collection days, however black and blue bin collections remain the foremost priority, and so brown bins collections will depend on whether we have colleagues and vehicles available. 

Each day we will make sure that we have enough capacity to collect black and blue bins, once we know we’re able to collect these bins, any additional vehicles and teams will empty as many brown bins that are due for collection that day as they possibly can.  

Residents should present their brown bin for collection on their usual collection day, and we’ll do our very best to empty them. We will not collect any additional garden waste left at the side of brown bins. If brown bins haven’t been collected, they must be taken in off the street and presented again on their next collection day (a fortnight later). Unfortunately we are unable to return to empty any missed brown bins at this time. 

We know that with the hot weather on its way people are eager to get out into their gardens, which will mean more garden waste, however it is still important to compost and reuse garden waste wherever possible – it is a better choice for our environment.  

We have provided additional information about composting and reusing garden waste, on our website. Please do not burn garden waste. 

We cannot guarantee that brown bins will be collected fortnightly at this time, but will do our best to collect what we can with the resource on any given day. Residents who use their brown bin for food waste can compost it or put it in the black bin instead if they are concerned about the wait between collections. As always, we would encourage residents to reduce food waste as much as possible and to compost fruit and vegetable waste in their garden.  

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank residents for their patience and understanding whilst we do everything we can to maintain our services. 

Raynesway Household Waste and Recycling Centre remains closed until further notice, however bulky waste collections are available to book if residents are producing extra waste.  

For more information about waste collections, please visit our website and follow the guidance provided.

Councillor Jonathan Smale, Cabinet Member for Public Protection and Streetpride commented:

"I am extremely happy that we’re able to restart this valuable service, albeit in a limited capacity for the time being. The team have worked phenomenally hard to resume this service for residents. I know it has been frustrating, especially with the wonderful weather we’ve been having but I would like to thank each and every one of you for your patience and understanding."

Waste