Garden waste frequently asked questions

It is an opt-in, chargeable service to have domestic garden waste collected fortnightly from your home using a black 240 litre wheeled bin, which will be delivered to you when you subscribe to the service.

The service started on Monday 30 September 2019.

You can sign up on our garden waste: sign up page.

As your annual service period nears its end, we will contact you.

Direct Debit Customers: If you pay by Direct Debit and do not wish to make any changes, no action is required. We will automatically collect your payment from your nominated bank account and extend your service for another 12 months.

Card Payment Customers: If you pay by card, you will need to complete our renewal process and make a new card payment, or you can set up a Direct Debit to pay for the service.

Yes, you will be able to order up to three garden waste bins per property.

The price per container for a 12-month subscription is £60.

No, the charge is for the collection of the waste, not the purchase of the new wheeled bin.

The bin remains the property of the council.

If your property is unsuitable for wheeled bins, you can subscribe to the service for a re-usable hessian sack.

This will be the same annual charge as a 240 litre wheeled bin and you will receive 3 x 90 litre re-usable hessian sacks.

Garden waste will not be collected in other sacks/ bags apart from those issued by the borough council.

You can share a garden waste bin with your neighbour as an informal arrangement.

Payment must be made by one householder and the bin will be assigned to one address only.

If you live in a flat but you have your own garden and wheeled bins you can still opt into the service.

If you have communal gardens/bins you should contact your managing agent or housing association as they will be responsible for the removal of garden waste.

If you sign up to the new service and you already have an assisted collection, where the bin is pulled out and returned for you, this will continue.

If you don't currently have an assisted collection and you have difficulties presenting your bins please let us know.

No, if you decide you do not want or need the garden waste service you do not need to contact us.

Our new garden waste service is opt-in which means you only need to let us know if you would like to receive this service.

The council will sweep leaves from roads and pavements in the borough regardless of the ownership of land from where they came.

The council is not responsible for the collection/disposal of leaves from residents’ properties which may have fallen from highway land or other landowners’ trees, apart from through the opt-in garden waste service.

If you live in area enhanced by the natural beauty of trees and woodland, and have leaf fall in the autumn, a good way of dealing with this is to ‘mulch’ the leaves, which provides an excellent soil improver for your garden.

Alternatively you may wish to take them to your nearest household waste recycling site where they will be composted.

Yes, you can register at any time of the year.

You can sign up on our garden waste: sign up page.

The opt-in garden waste service operates on a fortnightly basis and so there are 26 collections a year.

The black bin garden waste collections are not suspended over the Christmas period. We endeavour to keep the collections going throughout the year.

If you have opted into our garden waste scheme and you move to a new house, you will need to let us know.

If you move within the borough, we will deliver a container to your new property and collect the container from your old property. We will also update our collection schedule to ensure your garden waste is collected from your new property.

If you move outside of the borough, we will cancel your garden waste service. No refunds will be made in these circumstances.

Our collection crews use an electronic collection management system, which has a record of the properties which are registered for the scheme so they will know exactly which properties are entitled to a collection.

The collection crews will only empty garden waste bins which are outside properties that are registered for the service.

You can put your house number on the bin which will help deter theft, and keeping your bin on your property until collection day will prevent other people using your bin.

The price per container for a 12-month subscription is £60.

You can have up to three subscriptions per property.

No. The annual charge applies to all households regardless of personal circumstances.

Other options are available for disposal of garden waste, such as home composting or taking it to a household waste recycling site.

You can also share a garden waste bin with your neighbour as an informal arrangement. Payment must be made by one householder and the bin will be assigned to one address only.

The payment must be made in full when you opt-in for the garden waste service.

Unlike household waste and recycling, there's no legal requirement to collect garden waste and councils can charge for collections.

The income from charging for garden waste collections helps us to improve the waste and recycling collection service by introducing weekly food waste collections and fortnightly glass, textiles, batteries and small electrical item collections.

Not all properties require a garden waste collection service because they do not have a garden.

Introducing a charge means the service will only be paid for by those households that choose to use it. This is similar to large and electrical item collections where only households requesting the service have to pay.

The decision to introduce an opt-in charge for garden waste was taken by the council’s cabinet in August 2018.

Charging for garden waste collection brings us in line with more than half of councils across the country who now charge for this service.

The council must provide certain statutory services, these include waste collection and disposal, street cleaning and recycling.

Council Tax helps to provide these statutory services but collecting garden waste is a discretionary service and the council can no longer afford to provide this service free of charge.

Since not all residents need or want to use the service a decision was taken to continue to offer garden waste collection but as an opt-in chargeable service.

Yes, under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, councils can charge for the collection of garden waste.

Over half of all councils in England already charge for the collection of garden waste.

You can still take your garden waste to any of Kent County Council's household waste recycling centres, or you can compost your garden waste at home.

Fees and charges for services and Council Tax rates are set locally by each authority.

The decision to introduce an opt-in charge for garden waste was taken by the elected members of the council’s cabinet in August 2018 taking into account the overall financial implications of the new recycling, waste and street cleaning service.

The quickest and easiest way to opt-in to our garden waste service is to sign up and pay online using a debit or credit card or setup a Direct Debit.

Sign up today

If you are unable to subscribe online you can call our customer service team on 01892 526121 who will  be able to

There will be no reduction in cost for the smaller bin, the fee is the same whether you opt for the 240L bin, the 140L bin or hessian sacks.

You can compost garden waste at home or you can take it to the North Farm tip.

The civic amenity vehicle no longer accepts garden waste (from 30 September 2019).

If you choose not to subscribe to the new garden waste service you can compost at home or take your garden waste to the North Farm tip where it can be recycled.

No, your green household waste bin is only for non-recyclable waste.

If your bin contains garden waste such as grass, leaves, prunings etc. it will not be emptied.

Garden bonfires can cause real annoyance and nuisance to neighbours and we strongly discourage them.

You can find more information about bonfires on our website.

In other areas where chargeable garden waste has been introduced there have been no appreciable increase in complaints around bonfires.

Please check our garden waste bin page.

Please check our garden waste bin page.

Your new wheeled bin is for garden waste only.

Your food waste will be collected separately every week which means the two material streams can be processed in different ways.

Food waste will be processed by in vessel composting at Blaise Farm in West Malling, and garden waste may be composted at other locations which will not allow food waste.

It is better to collect food waste every week as it helps to minimise smells and flies.

The 23 ltr food caddy has a lockable lid keeping the contents secure until collection.

No, it is not garden waste so should be bagged and placed into your green household waste bin.

No, please do not use any kind of liner in the bin as it could fall out of the bin when it is emptied into the vehicle, and contaminate the garden waste.

The garden waste collected will be composted and used as a soil improver on farmland, to help grow new crops.

You should store your bin within your property boundary until collection day in the same way that you would with your other containers.

Numbering your bin will also help avoid mistakes by other residents.

The majority of homes will be given a 240 ltr black bin when they opt-in to the garden waste service.

Homes which have a smaller garden can choose to request a smaller 140 ltr bin or to have sacks for their garden waste.

We are not able to offer larger (360 ltr) garden waste bins, however you will be able to order up to three garden waste bins per property.

Please note each bin will be charged at the same rate for a year's subscription.

Container sizes

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