Waste collection services to change during winter months

Council bosses have decided to once again suspend garden waste collections in favour of clean cardboard-only collections between November and March.

The scheme was first trialled last year, but was thrown into disarray by the bad weather.

Rotherham Council’s green bin service, which takes a mix of garden waste and cardboard, will continue until Monday, November 14. From then on, only clean cardboard will be accepted in green bins.

The green waste collections will then resume as normal on Monday, March 19.

Coun Richard Russell, spokesman for waste at Rotherham Council, said: “It makes sense to get income from a recyclable product rather than damaging the composting process or sending it to expensive landfill.

“It is an obvious use of the green bins, which are very light on green garden waste at this time of year and predominantly contain cardboard, specially around Christmas.

“But I must remind households that it is clean cardboard only. We are not being difficult but any greens bins that are contaminated by other products will result in whole lorry loads being turned away and sent to landfill.

“That is why we will not collect green bins that contain other waste.”

During the winter, green bins containing “contaminants” such as garden waste, household waste, plastic film and tape will not be collected.

A spokesman for Rotherham Council said: “The reason for the card-only collection is due to the difficulties in trying to compost contents of the green bins when it is predominantly cardboard.

“During the winter months the contents are about 10 per cent garden waste and 90 per cent cardboard - completely the wrong mix for compost - and which is coming under scrutiny from the Environment Agency.

“In the summer months, however, a mix is acceptable at composting sites because the card is effectively diluted by the large amounts of garden waste and can be readily turned into acceptable compost.”

Those households that do produce garden waste during the winter are asked to compost it.