Garden waste

Unlike recycling, food and general waste, we don't have a duty to collect garden waste. By introducing a charge, this helps keep our council tax charges down and is fairer: only those people who benefit from the service pay for it. Many other councils also make a charge or don't offer the service at all.

In accordance with the Governments waste hierarchy we re-use garden waste wheelie bins that are in a good working order to reduce our impact on the environment.

No. It's very expensive to dispose of black sack waste and far better for the environment to compost garden waste. As an alternative to having your garden waste collected, you could consider home composting or taking it to a recycling centre instead, see Find a recycling centre.

A small amount of hay and straw is acceptable but it must not contain any shredded paper, cardboard or faeces. Any soiled pet waste must be disposed of in with your black sack waste.

You can buy “pay as you go” council garden waste sacks which you can put out on the right day for garden waste collection. Please note, we only accept council garden waste sacks and no other form of sack. Sacks full of garden waste that are not identifiable as council-purchased sacks will not be collected. See Where to buy compostable sacks.

If you decide to opt-out completely, you can take your garden waste to your local recycling centre, see Find a recycling centre.

Alternatively, you could undertake composting at home, see Buy a home composter or start a local community composting group by contacting Devon Community Composting Network.

Yes, as long as it is put out for collection outside the property of the householder who's subscribed to the service.

Yes. Each additional bin will be charged at the yearly rate. 

Yes, if you have a large garden but don't want to pay subscriptions for more than one bin, you can also buy “pay as you go” garden waste sacks from the council and approved outlets - see Where to buy compostable sacks. Pay as you go council sacks can be left alongside your stickered bin or put out on your organic collection day.

Residents who opt in will be issued with a permit to stick to their brown bin and our collection crews will have up-to-date information on which households have subscribed and will only collect from those who have paid.

On non-collection days, each household is responsible for storing their brown wheeled bin securely on their private property. If you suspect other residents are making use of your bin, they would be trespassing in this instance and should be reported to the police. If you suspect that your bin is being abused when placed on the kerbside for collection days, please contact us as we have procedures in place for our Enforcement team to investigate.

We will place a reminder sticker on the bin advising the resident that the garden waste collection is a chargeable service and to contact Customer Services for further information. If this continues, we will remove the bin.

Please use our online form; Request removal of unwanted brown bin and we'll arrange to come and collect it. Depending on the condition of the bin, we'll either reuse or recycle it.

The decision to charge for the collection of garden waste has not been taken lightly. We've consulted other local authorities who've also introduced a similar service and the feedback received is that they've not experienced any additional fly-tipping. However, we're prepared to deal with any reports of fly-tipped garden waste and anyone caught doing this will be fined.

No, please put ash in with your black sack waste.