Garden Waste Collection Scheme Gets Approval

Elected members at Dumfries and Galloway Council’s Communities Committee met on 4 June to consider a report and approve recommendations on the implementation of a kerbside service for the collection of garden waste.

The report follows extensive public engagement in 2021 and 2022 that showed strong support for a garden waste collection service, and will contribute to the Waste, Recycling, and Reuse Strategy for 2023-2030. The report details the benefits of a garden waste service including benchmarking against other local authorities, best practice, as well as a sustainable service model and risk mitigation.

With the opportunity to secure funding from the Recycling Improvement Fund (RIF) for 2024/25, the council’s business case was submitted it to Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS) on 10 May. This submission is contingent upon elected member agreement – now granted by Communities Committee – and will be communicated to ZWS before the RIF decision-making board meeting on 20 June. Approval from the RIF board is essential for the council's bid to proceed.

Following the introduction of the kerbside collection of dry recyclates (paper, cardboard, plastics, metals and food cartons) and food, a survey conducted from September to November 2022 revealed that 75.5% of the 2,702 respondents supported the addition of a garden waste service. With 73.8% satisfaction with the current dry recyclates collection, this new service aims to build on existing positive feedback.

The council’s recycling rates improved from 30.1% in 2020 to 45.1% in 2022, but there is still a significant gap to meet Scotland’s national recycling target of 70%. Introducing a garden waste collection service is a crucial step toward this goal.

A council spokesperson said: “We are committed to supporting recycling in Dumfries and Galloway. The introduction of this scheme will support our targets to improve recycling rates across the region and will complement our existing kerbside collections. Following the committee’s decision, we will now move forward and, should our bid to the Recycling Improvement Fund be successful, work to launch the scheme in Spring 2025.”

The Communities Committee proposals will now be considered at Finance Procurement and Transformation Committee on 18 June.

ENDS