"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...
On 20/12/14 22:13, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
Tim Watts writes:
On 20/12/14 20:41, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
South Beds (back when it existed) got a government grant to buy all the
garden compost wheelie bins (probably 15 years ago?), but they made a
profit from the collection, composting, and sale of garden compost.

Councils which charged for garden waste collection generally got far
too
small participation for it to be a profitable business.

Rother has this year switched from free to chargeable garden waste.

Interesting. Reading (and other places) tried to do that, and goverment
told them the charge would count against them as a council tax increase,
and so they abandoned the idea and it remains free AFAIK.

Although collection of garden waste in Reading was free from the
beginning, residents had to buy the garden recycling bin, so the
take-up was not universal by any means.


Our charge is reasonably nominal £25 per annum and includes the standard
sized wheelie bin.

Uptake has been partial here. For me it was a no brainer as I have a long
hawthorn hedge and clippings are not practical to compost[1], would rip my
car to bits if I shoved it in for the dump and I fill my brown bin about
75% of the year (fortnightly collections).

[1] I have wondered if a chipper would work - but hawthorn is so wiggly
and stiff I wonder if it would even be possible to feed it into a domestic
shredder at any sane rate - unlike say long thin sticks of ash.

My house is not bonfire friendly - short all round garden - whenever I
have tried to burn materials I have smoked someone out in short order.

I compost all my own stuff including hedge clippings.
I take stuff from my neighbours too.
Takes one/two years to compost thicker twigs.
I run anything over 10mm dia through the shredder & it will compost in six
months.
I also buy compost at the recycle centre.
They will deliver by the truck load if you want.
There are no separate bins for garden waste here