SOUTH Lanarkshire Council will introduce a charge to uplift garden waste.

Councillors at the Executive Committee meeting yesterday (June 27), approved the plans which will mean residents will have to pay £45 per year to have their garden waste uplifted. 

The move was met with some criticism from councillor Ian McAllan (Clydesdale East), who was against introducing the charge.


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He said: "We move against the recommendation for a charge, because it is completely unacceptable to introduce additional charges to the public during a cost of living crisis and, we all know the Scottish Government will make garden waste collection management legislation in the near future, why not wait until the legislation is introduced, this will save the significant costs and allow time for the council to tailor an approach which meets legislative requirements."

The council introduced a burgundy bin to collect food waste to comply with the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012. Those regulations placed a statutory obligation on local authorities in Scotland to provide householders with a separate food waste collection service.

There was no statutory requirement to provide residents with a garden waste collection service, the council allowed residents who had been provided with a burgundy bin to deposit unbagged, compostable garden waste free of charge.


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But as councils across Scotland looked for ways to reduce budgetary pressures, charges for garden waste collections had become increasingly common.

Currently in Scotland, six councils do not provide a kerbside garden waste collection service for residents, 21 councils operate a chargeable garden waste permit scheme and five councils, including South Lanarkshire, provide the service free of charge.

The council will now follow suit and like the 21 other local authorities in Scotland, will implement a charge to recover some of the costs associated with providing the service.

Around 110,000 households in South Lanarkshire have been provided with a burgundy bin to present which includes food and garden waste. Residents in flatted properties with no gardens have communal ‘food only’ burgundy bins and around 5000 rural properties, mainly in Clydesdale, were not provided with a burgundy bin and were unable to present food or garden waste separately at the kerbside.

The new plans will mean that residents who wish to have garden waste uplifted will pay £45 per year for their burgundy bin to be collected every two weeks in the financial year, this excludes a two-week period over Christmas and New Year.

Residents who use the burgundy bin solely for food waste will not require a permit.

Unlike the current food and garden waste collection service, the permit scheme would be available to residents in rural Clydesdale. The cost of the permit would include the cost of providing the burgundy bin as well as a food waste caddy. The establishment of this service would allow those residents in rural Clydesdale not currently on the service to opt in to receive a burgundy bin and caddy for food waste only.

The service is planned to commence from April 1 2025.

The Scottish Government is currently considering proposals to make garden waste collections mandatory, if that is implemented, South Lanarkshire Council will no longer be able to charge for the collection service.