East Renfrewshire could be about to adopt fortnightly brown bin collections.
The garden waste permit scheme, now in its fourth year of operation, currently provides permit holders with 50 weekly collections of food and garden waste throughout the year for a one-off annual fee of £52.20.
Food waste collection remains a statutory service and is collected from brown bins without the need for a permit.
Almost all local authorities in Scotland either charge for garden waste collection, which is a non-statutory service, or don’t offer such collections. East Renfrewshire is the only council that continues to offer a weekly garden waste collection.
A report which will be discussed by councillors tomorrow says the estimated cost of providing a weekly garden waste collection in 2025/26 is £1.9 million.
And while around 22,800 permits were sold this year, the forecast income from permit sales is £1.2m – £700,000 less than what it costs to run the service.
In order to reduce the cost of heavily subsidising garden waste collections, it’s proposed that, from 2025/26, the council keeps the current £52.20 annual charge for permits but changes the frequency of brown bin collections to a fortnightly service.
Council chiefs say this will bring East Renfrewshire into line with neighbouring councils.
Permit holders would get 25 collections throughout the year which will save the council around £350,000 – this figure would go towards overall savings that need to be made in the year ahead.
The report by officers says a decision has to be taken now to allow for enough time for a fortnightly collection to be introduced from May.
It remains an opt-in permit system and anyone who doesn’t require their garden waste to be collected can still use their brown bin for food waste. Residents also have the option of purchasing additional permits.
This proposal comes after council leader Owen O’Donnell warned earlier this month that the council is facing significant financial challenges to close a projected budget shortfall of £15m for 2025/26.
Councillor O’Donnell said cuts to services would be required to help close the budget gap and this would impact the services the council delivers to the public.
The proposal to move to fortnightly brown bin collections will be discussed by councillors at tomorrow’s meeting of the full council.
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