Cardboard only rule for town’s green bin collections

From December 6 until February 29, the council will suspend its collections of garden waste and will be picking up only clean cardboard for recycling.

Green bins containing anything other than clean cardboard – for example garden waste, household rubbish and plastic packaging – may not be collected.

Householders may be left with a prominent sticker as a reminder.

In winter, the amount of garden waste collected falls to about ten per cent of normal levels, meaning the collected mixture of garden waste and cardboard cannot effectively be turned into compost and attempts to do so would damage the environment.

During the summer months, the higher amounts of grass cuttings, hedge trimmings and other waste create the perfect mix for composting, but Environment Agency regulations prevent this in the winter months.

Households that produce garden waste over the winter are asked to either use a home compositor or take it to one of the council’s household waste and recycling centres.

An information card with full details of winter collections will be delivered to all households shortly. It will also carry a full calendar of bin collection dates for 2011/2012.

Cllr. Roy Miller, Council spokesman for Development, Environment and Culture, said: “During the winter months hardly any garden waste is collected, it therefore makes more sense to collect clean cardboard only which we can recycle rather than composting.”

Rotherham Council recently announced the suspension of garden waste collections between November and March, with clean cardboard the only rubbish being picked up.

The scheme was set to be trialled last year but was thrown into chaos because of record snowfall and freezing temperatures.

Rotherham’s green bin service will only accept clean cardboard from November 14 until March 19.