This yearโs fortnightly brown bin collections will start in Leeds from Monday 13 March, with collections continuing through to December.
The largest garden waste collection service
Leeds City Council delivers the largest garden waste collection service by any council in the UK and continues to be one of a minority of councils to do so for free.
As part of the free service, crews emptied 29,662 tonnes of garden waste from the 217,000 brown bins across Leeds last year.
All the garden waste collected in brown bins across Leeds is composted locally and used in farming, horticulture and land restoration projects around the city.
Benefits of the service
The service helps homeowners, with gardens that produce enough waste to justify a fortnightly collection, manage their garden waste during busier gardening months and is intended to compliment other environmentally beneficial ways to use/dispose of garden waste.
These include leaving grass cuttings on your lawn, reusing garden waste by composting or creating piles for insects, birds and other local wildlife, which not only help the eco-system but the garden itself.
To further help residents with composting, the council is working in partnership with Great Green Systems to offer an exclusive 40% discount to residents on a range of composters, find out more at www.leeds.gov.uk/composting
Excess garden waste can be disposed of for free, at all eight of the councilโs household waste recycling centres which are open seven days a week, no booking required. Residents can find their closest centre at www.leeds.gov.uk/recycling
Residents can find out when their first brown bin collection date is by downloading the Leeds Bin App or by checking online at www.leeds.gov.uk/mybinday
Thoughts from leaders
Councillor Mohammed Rafique, Leeds City Councilโs executive member for environment and housing, said that the resumption resumption of the free brown bin collection service is welcome news, marking the return of spring to Leeds.
โWith over 18,000 brown bins emptied and taken for composting every day across Leeds, we are proud to offer the largest, free garden waste collection service of any council in the UK to help residents manage their gardens.”
Councillor Mohammed Rafique, Executive Member for Environment and Housing, Leeds City Councilโs
However, Rafique noted that the collection service could not be offered to every household. Additionally, regardless of whether houses have a brown bin or not, the most environmentally friendly way to manage garden waste is by home-composting as much as residents can; creating soil nutrients and improving the biodiversity of your garden and neighbourhood.