Ashfield district council would also reduce residual bin capacity for residents, by swapping the current 240-litre refuse containers with smaller 180L garden waste bins.
Garden waste collections are currently an opt-in service carried out by the council, with residents paying £26 for their material to be collected on a fortnightly basis between March and December.
Mixed paper, card, plastics and cans are also collected fortnightly, while the council operates a monthly kerbside sort service for glass. Residual is collected fortnightly.
The proposals, which the council suggest could boost its recycling rate by 10%, will be presented in a report to the cabinet next week (November 5).
At present, Ashfield recycles around 34% of its waste – and the authority is conscious that it has some way to go to meet the 50% target set for England in 2020.
The report – penned by the council’s environmental officers – will claim that failure to meet the 50% target could ‘prove costly’ for local authorities, arguing that if fines equivalent to those in Wales were imposed at current performance levels, Ashfield would be liable to pay at £1 million fine in 2020.
However, there is currently no statutory requirement for councils in England to meet the 50% target.
Disposal
If approved, the project is to receive funding from Nottinghamshire county council which the authority claims will benefit from paying less for residual waste disposal. Keep Britain Tidy is also expected to help communicate the changes to residents.
Further details of the changes are expected in late November 2015.
Councillor Tim Brown, Ashfield’s Portfolio Holder for Environment, said: “Residents of Ashfield have always been extremely supportive of the council’s efforts to help them recycle more and the proposed scheme would do that.
“The majority of residents have told us before that they would like a garden waste bin and this will give everyone a chance to have one for two years without paying anything. We are confident that people will back this scheme.”
Charge
The novel move to scrap the garden waste charge is at odds with many other councils in England, which are currently switching to a chargeable system in the wake of cuts to government funding.
More than a third of all English councils currently charge for green waste collections, with annual fees ranging from around £20 in Gateshead to £95 in Harlow.
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