Garden waste permits will go on sale later this month to South Lanarkshire residents wishing to retain use of the council service after March 31 – with many hitting out at the new charge and saying they will not be signing up.

Householders will now need to pay £45 per year to be able to recycle items including grass and hedge clippings, plants, weeds, leaves and small branches in their burgundy bins; but the bins will also still continue to be collected for food waste from all properties.

Council officials announced this week that permits will go on sale online from February 19, with a Facebook post receiving more than 1000 comments and many residents suggesting that they will stop recycling garden waste altogether while continuing to use the free-of-charge food collection.

South Lanarkshire agreed to introduce charges for garden waste collections in June last year, with the new system now coming into operation from April 1 and paying customers then receiving a fortnightly combined garden and food bin collection for 12 months, with the exception of a two-week period over Christmas and new year.

Permit stickers showing the address of the registered property will have to be prominently displayed on “the back of [the] burgundy bin, below the handles” and be visible from the roadside to qualify for garden waste collection, with the authority issuing “a maximum of three permits and burgundy bins per household” and residents being offered an opportunity to order larger or additional bins ahead of the change.

Food waste is still being collected as previously and free of charge because this is a statutory requirement, but burgundy bins containing garden waste without a permit will be tagged and not emptied. Residents are being advised of the free alternatives of composting garden waste at home or making an appointment to take it to one of South Lanarkshire’s six household waste and recycling centres.

Residents commenting in their droves on the council’s social media update hit out at the new charge, with huge numbers saying that they simply plan to stop recycling garden waste and placing this instead into general waste bins.

One commenter said: “I don’t understand why you need to pay if there’s garden waste in [a burgundy bin] if they are still going to collect it every fortnight for food waste, it’s surely all going to the same place.”

The new scheme – which means South Lanarkshire now joins the majority of Scottish councils in introducing a charge for the service – impacts 110,000 households with combined food and garden waste bins. Flats without gardens have communal food-only bins while 5000 properties across rural Clydesdale have not previously had access to food and garden waste recycling but will now be eligible to purchase permits.

SNP councillors who voted against the introduction of the scheme last year – calling it “completely unacceptable to introduce additional charges to the public during a cost of living crisis” – have restated their opposition, with group leader John Ross, the Hamilton South councillor, saying that his group was against the plan “for the many reasons outlined in the comments from residents”.

Clydesdale MSP Mairi McAllan, the energy and net zero secretary, called the £45 charge a “potential disincentive for recycling” and said that with a Scottish Government review taking place to improve the rate of household recycling, she “would urge the Labour council to reconsider and to wait for the outcome, as was suggested by SNP councillors at the time of the vote”.

East Kilbride colleague Collette Stevenson posted: “At a time when we are trying to reach net zero, it is unfair to charge households for recycling services. This is the wrong direction.”

The report presented to councillors leading to agreement of the new £45 charge noted that it is expected to generate £500,000 in income during 2025-2026 and £875,000 in the following financial year.

Sharing details of the permit introduction process, Lib Dem councillor Mark McGeever, who represents Hamilton West & Earnock, said on Facebook: “This isn’t a charge anyone really wants to impose, but councils across the country are implementing the permits because there’s no national funding for this type of waste collection – and they can’t afford to continue paying the costs without cutting other services.”

Details of how to purchase permits and prequently-asked questions are at www.southlanarkshire.gov.uk/info/200156/bins_and_recycling/2269/garden_waste_permit

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