Garden Waste FAQ's

Real Christmas trees can be recycled in your garden waste if you are subscribed to the service. Larger trees must be cut up and placed beside your bin on garden waste collection week. Remember to remove all decorations, tinsel stands, and pots. 

This is to enable crews to focus their resources on the recycling and refuse services which experience high volumes of tonnage at this busy time. 

You can still place your Christmas tree next to your garden waste bin on your first collection in January, freeing space for your other garden waste. Please make sure it is free of decorations.

This Christmas break was advertised at the time of subscription/renewal of the garden waste service and is detailed in the service terms and conditions.
 

There is no legal requirement to collect garden waste this means that it is not required to be covered by your council tax payment and therefore many Councils charge for this service in order to continue to be able to offer collections of garden waste. The alternative was that East Herts removed collection of garden waste as a service completely. Councillors agreed that it was important to continue to offer a garden waste collection service for residents who wish to use it. Council tax itself is a mandatory payment which covers a variety of services such as fire, police, adult social care and children’s services including education. You may not use all these services but you still have to pay your council tax. This change brings the garden waste collection in-line with other not legally required, pay for services, such as bulky waste collections, which is a service only paid for by people who use it.

At the Exec meeting on 24th Nov Members agreed to go out to public consultation. All of the Council's consultations are publicly available on our website. The consultation ran from 2 December to 31 December 2020 with 4,579 respondents. Results of the consultation can be found on the meeting agenda for 13 January 2021 We publicised the consultation via our website, social media and the local press ran stories.

Yes. You can sign up to receive a collection for up to a total of three garden waste bins. You can sign up and pay for an additional bin(s) to be delivered.

If you do not re-subscribe then your garden waste bin collections will stop at the end of March. You do not need to tell us you are not re-subscribing unless you are a Direct Debit customer; as the service will be removed from your property automatically. If you subscribed via Direct Debit then you need to advise us so we can cancel this for you. Please contact us wasteandrecycling@north-herts.gov.uk 

Garden waste only including:
•    Grass cuttings
•    Hedge clippings
•    Small tree prunings, branches, bark and twigs
•    Tree branches (up to 3cm in diameter)
•    Moss, weeds (excluding controlled weeds such as Japanese Knotweed)
•    Flowers
•    Plants with excess soil removed
•    Fallen fruit
•    Leaves
•    Real Christmas trees without decorations and pot
 

You could compost your garden waste at home. Information about home composting and how to purchase a reduced price home compost bin is on the website. You could also look into a private waste collection, although remember to check that any company has a waste carriers licence.

You cannot burn your garden waste if this creates a nuisance to your neighbours. If you have space for a bonfire we would encourage you to use this space to home compost. Some dry garden waste may be suitable to burn but be mindful of your neighbours, as a sunny dry day is often a washing day. More information about bonfires is available on the gov.uk website.

We strongly discourage residents from placing garden waste in the refuse bin as there are alternative, more environmentally friendly ways to dispose of it. Residents can sign up to the garden waste collection service or compost at home. However, if you do not produce a large amount of garden waste and have sufficient space in your refuse bin, then garden waste can be placed in there. This is providing that the bin is not over filled and that you do not place additional side waste out next to your refuse bin on your general waste collection day. Additional side waste won’t be collected and neither will overfilled bins

Pet bedding is not garden waste and therefore would be classed as general household waste. Strictly, the garden waste bin is only for garden waste and all other household waste should be placed in bins as specified by the Council.

From a legislative point of view, we are only able to charge residents for removal of their garden waste, and cat litter – even if it is biodegradable, does not fall into this category. However, you may wish to compost it at home.

The chargeable garden waste service is for the collection of garden waste only for those residents who have chosen to opt-in to the paid scheme. The Council will continue to collect household waste including food for free, whether you have a garden waste bin or not. The Council does not encourage the use of the garden waste bin for the disposal of food waste. If residents choose to put food waste in the garden waste bin together with garden waste, the Council will still collect and empty the bin, though not if it contains anything else. However, you will be diminishing the bin capacity for your garden waste, for which you have paid the charge.

Your garden waste gets sent to Cumberlow Green to be processed, by In Vessel Composting. In Vessel composting will be used to ensure that the garden waste will be treated for a minimum of 4 days and will reach temperatures of 65-800c to ensure it is sanitised. When we are confident that no food waste is present in the brown bins we hope we can then move to an open windrow process for garden waste.

No, we are unable to accommodate payment by instalments in our payment system. The cost of doing this would increase the cost of providing the service overall.

We cannot offer a pro-rata charge as it is necessary for us to plan resources, ensuring we have sufficient vehicles and staff throughout the year. Having a fixed sign up period allows for administration of the service to also be contained in a short period. Having a pro rata service would likely result in a higher overall charge requiring ‘just in case’ resources to manage changes in sign up volumes.

It is worth initially checking the ‘junk’ folder of your emails. It’s possible your receipt is there. If you still have any concerns you can log back into the website and check your order history. Your orders will show as ‘completed’ if your payment was processed successfully.

To increase the number of subscriptions you have you can access your account and add a second or third service to your address. If you wish to reduce the number of subscriptions, you have via direct debit please email wasteandrecycling@north-herts.gov.uk so we can do this for you. 

We are no longer using Urbaser Ltd collect and process your garden waste payments. This means we will have a period of disruption whilst we transfer this payment to the council. We normally take your direct debit payments in advance of your subscription year starting on 1st April, however moving your direct debit to us takes a bit of time. We will be renewing your garden waste collections for 2025/26 (unless you tell us not to) without taking you direct debit in advance. We will write to you again to advise when we will collect your payment, giving you at least the required 10 days’ notice we intend to take the money.

Please be advised that the garden waste collection charge for 2025/26 is £59 per subscription.

We will be arranging for your new permit to come out to you as soon as possible but this will not be before collections start on the 1st April. Our crews will know you will not yet have your sticker and will continue to check their handheld devices to confirm you are a customer. 

We apologise for this disruption and thank you for your patience. 
 

We are not currently able to accept new direct debits.

If you do not wish to pay again for the next year subscription period, please contact us so we can cancel this for you so the payment isn’t taking. wasteandrecycling@north-herts.gov.uk

Please allow up to 14 days for your sticker to arrive. If you have not received it within three weeks of payment please contact us. If you have paid by Direct Debit your permit may be issued up to 10 days after the payment has been taken (this includes payments that are recurring). Crews will know that you have paid so please continue to present your garden waste bin for collection whilst you wait for your permit to arrive. 

Collection vehicles will have an electronic record of which addresses have signed up. Clearly numbering your bin(s) will also help to ensure that the crew can easily identify it for collection. You will also receive a sticker through the post to place on your bin to identify it as part of the service. This sticker needs to be displayed to ensure your garden waste bin is emptied.

Yes - The Council will still provide sacks free of charge but you will need to sign up and pay for a subscription. If you require sacks please contact us to advise. You can have up to 75 sacks per subscription. 

If you live in a flat but you have your own garden you can still opt into the service. If you have communal gardens you should contact your managing or housing association as they will be responsible for the removal of garden waste.

You can share a garden waste bin with your neighbour as an informal arrangement, but payment must be made by one householder and the bin will be assigned to one address only.

If you sign up to the new service and you already have an assisted collection this will continue. If you don't currently have an assisted collection and you would like one then please apply online.

Yes, if you move to a new house within the district, you can take the service with you to your new property. You will need to inform us that you have moved and give details of both the old and new addresses. If you move out of the district, there is no refund available as you would have already received the service for a period before moving properties. Please note if there is no garden waste bin at your new property then you will need to purchase one.

You will need to contact us at wasteandrecycling@north-herts.gov.uk  to advise us if you have moved, we will need to update your address on your account for you and change the collections to your new property. 

Contact us for a replacement sticker, once we verify your subscription, we will cancel your old permit and issue a replacement for you. This could take up to 14 days to arrive