Most garden waste goes one of four ways: the council's garden waste bin, a compost heap, the tip, or a collection.
How do you get rid of garden waste?
Small amounts go in your council's garden waste bin or on a compost heap. Whatever fits in a car can go to your local recycling centre. When there is more than that, or no way to move it, Complete Waste Management loads it and takes it away, and nothing is paid until the job is done.
The garden waste bin
Most councils run a garden waste collection, usually as a yearly subscription for a separate bin that is emptied every week or two. It takes grass cuttings, leaves, weeds, flowers, hedge trimmings and small tree branches. It usually does not take soil, turf, stones, rubble, timber, plant pots or general rubbish, and each council sets its own limit on the size of what goes in.
For a garden kept on top of week by week, the bin is usually enough. A hedge cut back in one go can fill it for months.
A compost heap
Grass cuttings, leaves, soft prunings and weeds that have not gone to seed rot down in a heap or a compost bin at the end of the garden, and cost nothing. Woody stems and cut branches take years unless they are chipped first, and the roots of weeds like bindweed can grow again from the heap.
The tip
Your council's household waste recycling centre takes garden waste from residents, and at most sites there is no charge for it. Many now ask you to book a slot online first, and a van or a trailer may need a permit. Soil, turf and rubble are often treated separately from green waste, and some sites charge for them. Garden waste from a business is trade waste, which household sites either turn away or charge for.
The tip is the right answer when it all fits in the car in a trip or two.
Burning it
There is no law against a bonfire in your own garden, but the smoke must not become a nuisance to your neighbours, and you can be fined if it drifts across a road and puts traffic in danger. Burn dry garden waste only, never plastic, rubber or household rubbish.
The government's rules on garden bonfires are on GOV.UK.
A collection
When there is more than the bin, the heap or the car can take, it needs collecting. That is usually a hedge cut right back, the limbs from a tree that has been taken down, or a season of cuttings that has built up down the side of the house. The quickest way to a price is a photo on WhatsApp to 07523 280964, with the gate or the side passage in it if you can, because the way out matters as much as the size of the pile. The price comes back in writing before anything is booked. On the day we carry it all out ourselves, by hand where that is the only way, load it and sweep the ground behind us. Cut branches, hedge cuttings, leaves and turf go in the same load as an old bench or a broken fence panel. Whatever can be recycled is recycled, and nothing is paid until the job is done. The load prices are on our garden clearance page.
Before
AfterThe waste carrier
Anyone you pay to take garden waste away has to be a licensed waste carrier. Ask for the registration number and check it on the government's public register of waste carriers before anything goes on the van. If your waste goes to someone who is not registered and it ends up dumped, you can be fined as well as them.
Complete Waste Management is a licensed waste carrier, registration CBDU663075, in the company's own name.
