From next month you must pay to have your green bin collected (and beware what you put in your black bin)

Charges for green bin collection will apply from 1 October. If you want your garden waste collected you need to stump up £56 a year by that date. Food waste will no longer be collected and must go in the back bin, not the green bin. But beware what you put in the black bin. Shropshire Council is going to look in black bins to see if people have put green waste in them. If there is any green waste, your black bin won’t be collected. The thought of Veolia operatives sifting through soiled nappies and the detritus of household life looking for grass cuttings is mind boggling. This Orwellian rule is worthy of a totalitarian state. But it is par for the course for Shropshire Council’s leadership.

If you want to pay for collection of your green bin, you need to subscribe and pay the annual fee of £57 up front. If you have two bins, you must pay twice. If you have an old small green bin, Shropshire Council will replace it with a standard size bin free of charge. Redundant green bins will not be collected until 2025/26 and given the state of the council’s finances, that might not happen. Redundant green bins can be taken to Craven Arms and other Shropshire household recycling centres.

Those who subscribe to the service will get an annual sticker for each bin. Like Banksy’s self-shredding Girl with Balloon, the stickers will self destruct if an attempt is made to peel the sticker off.

Charging for green waste is inevitable given the council’s money problems. But it could be implementing the changes and charges in a more practical way.

Many questions are raised by Shropshire Council’s policy of searching our black bins. Are fallen apples regarded as food waste (allowed) or green waste (banned)? If you do a public service by sweeping up fallen leaves in the autumn to prevent people slipping on mush on the pavement because Shropshire Council doesn’t clean pavements, will the council then refuse to empty your bin? Most people put their general waste into bags before putting it into the black bin. Is Shropshire Council going to authorise Veolia to open bags of rubbish to examine their contents? This policy is as unworkable as Shropshire Council’s previous attempt to ban dogs pooing on the streets.

This draconian rule is being introduced because Shropshire Council is scared that the quantity of waste in the black bin will increase. The council is contracted to pay Veolia by the tonne for waste burnt in the Battlefield Incinerator.

Green bags will be available at the same cost for those that have no space for green bins. For those tempted to not subscribe until the spring because they have little green waste over the winter, the bad news is that they will still need to pay £54 for the remaing part of the 12 months until September 2025.

Food waste will no longer be collected in green bins along with garden waste. This decision is not because the food waste can’t be processed in Shropshire. It arises because it is illegal to charge for food waste collection. The council would be in a technical breach of the law if it continued to collect food waste through the green bin. Green waste must go in the black bin to be incinerated, generating CO² not compost. This is a retrograde step that will not be reversed until April 2026 when weekly collection of household food waste from the kerbside will be mandatory. For Ludlow, that will be back to the future and we will get the service back that was summarily axed in the summer of 2010 by Shropshire Council’s then climate change sceptical leadership. Removal of food waste collection will increase carbon emissions and slow Shropshire’s progress towards net zero.

I have asked the council’s cabinet how much food waste will be incinerated and how much extra CO² will be result.

Question for Cabinet 11 September 2024

With food waste collection due to be suspended from 1 October 2024 until 1 April 2026:

1) What is estimated tonnage of food waste that will not be collected?

2) What is the estimate of how much of this will be consigned to the black bin, rather than composted?

3) What is the estimate of additional CO² emissions from the incinerator as a result of burning food waste?