The council’s cabinet is expected to approve an annual charge of £54 a year for collection of green bins.
Food waste will no longer be collected.
Those that wish their green bin to be collected will need to register and pay the fee. Those that do subscribe will receive a sticker for their bin. Bins without a sticker won’t be collected. The council is not planning to collect redundant bins until after the first year. Those that do not wish to repurpose them or keep then during the first year would need to take them to Craven Arms HRC or to pay for Shropshire Council’s bulk waste service to remove them. There is a possibility the council will collect unused bins after the first year of operation. Households who regularly put food waste in their green bins could have collection suspended.
The charge will not be popular; 62% of respondents to the council’s consultation said charging was not fair. Only 35% said they would pay for their green bins to be collected. Shropshire Council estimates that around 131,000 households have a green bin collection at least once a year with the total green waste collected amounting to 43,000 tons. This would be reduced to around 11,000 tons if only just over one in three households decide to pay for the council service,
An extra 13,000 tons of garden waste will be taken to HRCs so will still be recycled but at the cost of greater carbon emissions. There will be a substantial increase in home composting, nearly 10,000 tons. That’s good because people should home compost. However, a third of those that said they would dispose of green waste in other ways said they would put it in the black residual waste bin and some even said they would fly-tip. Shropshire Council says that if green waste is found to be in the black bin it will not be collected.
A major reason for not wanting to pay is that people believe they are paying enough to the council already through council tax and do not want to pay. Many people said they couldn’t afford to pay more.
Tenants without a car will suffer from this policy. They will have a clause in their lease that requires them to keep their garden in good order on penalty of eviction.
Introduction of charging means that around 2,300 tons of food waste can no longer be collected with garden waste. That’s a retrograde and regrettable move. But it is illegal to charge for collection of food waste. Nearly nine in ten respondents to the consultation said if charges are introduced, they would put the food waste in the black bin. Currently, Shropshire Council collects food waste from about three-quarters of households. From April 2026, councils must collect food waste weekly from all households.
In terms of income, Shropshire Council is assuming that 55% of current green bin users take up the service. But only 35% of consultation respondents said they would. The council has added the 21% of people who don’t know whether they will subscribe to get to 55%. It doesn’t stop there. It thinks participation will be 70% and it could raise £4m a year. There is no evidence for this. It is fantasy economics and would not impress a bank manager. Given the consultation feedback it could be half that and that is before Shropshire Council pays any compensation due to Veolia due to the very restrictive contract signed in 2007.
As a final point, the council should have used a local image for their consultation report cover. The image is obviously not of Shropshire and it has been used on several websites including the Thrive website. Why not a shot of one the many community gardens in Shropshire? There is a magnificent compost bin in the community garden in Craven Arms and I am sure many others across the country. Use of an image with a Brutalist block of flat in the background suggests the council is out of touch with gardening communities in Shropshire.
Is the statement “Households who regularly put garden and food waste in their green bins could have collection suspended” correct?
Yes. However, if you put it a black bag how will they know? It’s a daft restriction from a council that is increasingly intolerant.
Neighbours who don’t produce much waste can share the costs of a green bin.
really there is no such thing as waste and Shrewsbury seeing this as a waste issue underline the problems with the council across the board. Just as a weed is the description of a beautiful plant society has decided is not in the good club, the idea of seeing the by products of beautiful gardens as waste is a lack of any understanding of nature.
The council should be paying us £54 a year to have access to all this organic material tat can be reprossed into organic compost or used as fuel to generate electricity.
The council still don’t collect most of our plastic, still don’t collect tetra packs.
The council could collect no re-usable plastics and charge the industries that produce it for failing to have a process in place.
The council could adopt a policy that no household by products leave the county and have to be repurposed in some way without resorting to land fill.
The council could accept that we have to change our habits if our grandchildren are going to have a better life than we have.
What is the likely outcome of this stupid idea? Organic byproduct fly tipping, another problem for local farmers! Come of council use brain cell not spread sheets
So where does food waste have to be put if it is a legal obligation for council to collect .
It is not a legal obligation to collect food waste until 1 April 2026
Could you please clarify on a couple of queries please
Is the green bin charge per household or per bin? as several households have more than one green bin,
Do we then put food waste in the black bin?
We have 5 large apple trees in our garden which means that we always have a large amount of rotten windfall apples each year, which we have disposed of in the green bin , would these be regarded as garden waste or food waste?
Good points. The charge is per bin. Apples would be garden waste
Questions–Will council compost it and use it and or sell the compost back to customers.
This will herald the return of bonfires: smoke nuisance, fire hazards, and incinerated hedgehogs.