Don't Waste this Opportunity...

Copyright NNDC

… to dispose of your garden waste and help keep rubbish out of landfill

North Norfolk residents who sign up to a new scheme before the end of October can have their garden waste taken away for less than £1 per collection.

Thanks to a Government grant, from Defra's National Waste Minimisation and Recycling Fund, North Norfolk District Council is rolling out a much bigger garden waste collection scheme than it had envisaged when its waste collection contract was up for renewal earlier this year.

Now, anyone in North Norfolk who wants their garden waste - things like grass cuttings, leaves and twigs - collected can sign up for the fortnightly collections, using a brown wheeled bin supplied by the Council, for £25 a year.

The bin will be free to those who sign up before the end of October 2004 - an incentive designed to help the Council order the correct number of bins, and plan suitable collection rounds based on firm information, before collections start early next year. The Defra grant of £1.5 million (which is also contributing to the new Twin Bins collection scheme for household rubbish and recyclables) must be spent before the end of March 2005.

Keeping garden waste out of landfill is an important part of NNDC's drive to meet the tough recycling targets it has been set by the Government. NNDC must recycle 36 per cent of household waste in 2005/06 (throughout the whole of that year, not just by the end of it), but by the start of this financial year only 17 per cent was being recycled.

Next week (beginning 30 August), the Council kicks off a campaign of promotion and advertising to explain the benefits of these garden waste collections, and let people know how they can sign up for them.

Anyone interested in having a garden waste bin can call 01263 516301 or visit www.northnorfolk.org/gardenwaste from Wednesday, 1 September.

More than 2000 people had signed up (at a higher price) for an earlier brown bin collection, which this new scheme replaces. While they have had their garden waste collected, one way or another, those people will be given next year's collection for free, so they are not penalised for having signed up early, and to thank them for their patience during the interim.

Also, some garden waste will have to go into the normal waste stream, at least in the early stages, if it is picked up from remoter areas in the District. In such cases it will not, at first, be cost-effective - or environmentally-responsible - to send a special garden waste collection vehicle to just a very few properties.

However, the bulk of North Norfolk's garden waste will be taken for composting from the outset of the new scheme, so it does not end up in landfill sites, which cause harmful greenhouse gas emissions and spoil our precious countryside.

ENDS