Garden waste

Garden waste

We're working hard to get stickers sent out to everyone that renewed their garden waste subscription. If you haven't received yours don't worry - it'll get to you in early April and we'll still collect your garden waste in the meantime

Garden waste

Residents can subscribe to our garden waste service with collections every two weeks. The service is charged but optional - you don't need to sign up.

Subscribe

You need to pay an annual subscription of £40 by debit or credit card (£45.60 from 1 April). 

Your subscription will run for 12 months. We'll start collections on the next collection date, after 10 working days.

If you need to buy extra subscriptions later - they will run out at the same time as your first subscription. So we recommend ordering any extra subscriptions at the same time as initially subscribing or renewing.

You can order 10 sacks at £16.50 (£17.50 from 1 April) for irregular collections. Each sack can hold approximately 80 litres of waste.

You'll need to leave a minimum of 3 sacks out at a time and let us know 3 working days before your next garden waste collection day.

You can also order a discounted home composter through Get Composting if you don't want to sign up.

Other information

Placing subscription stickers
Stickers on garden waste bins

Your sticker can be placed:

  • on the bin lid facing towards the front of the bin
    or
  • placed on the back of the bin below the handles (please present the bin with the sticker clearly visible so our crews can spot it)

Bin colours

We use different coloured bins across North Northamptonshire for garden waste. New or replacement bins we provide will be black with a brown lid as we unify our bin colours:

  • Corby area: Green bins
  • East Northamptonshire area: Black with a brown lid
  • Kettering area: Grey or green bins
  • Wellingborough area: Brown bins

Providing a bin, multiple subscriptions, sharing a bin, moving home and extra waste

We'll provide a standard-sized 240 litre bin. You can have a maximum of 4 bins per household - but these need to be ordered at the same time. You will be charged a £40 subscription for each bin.

Sharing a bin

You can share a bin with a neighbour - you can decide how to split its use and pay for it but this agreement will not be our responsibility.

Moving home

If you move house and stay in North Northamptonshire, you should leave the old bin and order another at your new address by contacting us.

Extra waste

We will only collect garden waste that fits in the garden waste bin with the lid closed, unless it is contained within provided council-supplied compostable sacks.

Extra waste left by the side of your bin will not be collected.

What we'll do if we find garden waste in the wrong bin

If we find garden waste in a general refuse or recycling bin, it will be tagged to inform you why we can't empty it. If it happens repeatedly, we'll write to you and explain what the issue is as part of our policy to raise awareness amongst residents.

We may issue a fixed penalty notice if you persistently ignore the rules around bin waste and it causes a nuisance, or, it is likely to have a negative impact on our services. We would do this in line with our enforcement and waste policies and is a last resort.

Information about the Christmas break and what to do with Christmas trees

There is a two week break over the Christmas and New Year period. Christmas trees should be cut up and placed in the bin.

Garden waste is taken to a composting site where it is shredded and put into large, long heaps

The waste is turned regularly to improve oxygen content, distribute heat to regulate the temperature and to distribute moisture.

The whole process takes in the region of sixteen weeks to produce a product which can then be screened to remove any contaminants (such as plastic) before use. It can then be used as a soil conditioner.

There is a cost to us to dispose of this waste and we do not make a profit from it.

Housing associations, sheltered accommodation and other landlords

Housing providers

If you're a landlord and need to order garden waste bins for properties (e.g. bins for multiple properties) please contact our team and we may be able to set up an invoiced service for you.

Commercial

Our team can provide quotes for an invoiced service for commercial garden waste collections.

We review the costs of providing this service each year and the subscription from 1 April will be £45.60 per bin.

We appreciate that living costs have gone up for everyone recently and we thought long and hard before we increased the garden waste subscription charge for this year.

The increase helps cover the extra costs of running the service. It's still subsidised and costs us more than £45.60 per bin to provide the service. The main costs include running our vehicles, employing crews that empty your bins and paying to dispose of the waste through a registered contractor that composts it.

Last updated 14 March 2024