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Spring into Green Waste Recycling

Green waste recycling collections will be ‘Springing’ to weekly collections from Monday 13th March.

Don’t forget, you need to register for FREE to use this service.

After a cold and wet winter, you may be hoping for some early spring sunshine to help your garden blossom.

Many of you will now start to head into your gardens for the first time in a few months to offer some much-needed tender loving care – but what do you do with the clippings, grass cutting and debris?

The green waste recycling scheme changed in November 2021 as part of our ongoing commitment to climate change and recycling – This saw the introduction of a sustainable and reusable green sack and the need for you to register for collections.

We are reminding you that the Streetcare team will start collecting your green waste weekly, from the kerbside, as part of our summer weekly recycling collection, from Monday 13th March.

From cuttings to shrubs, flowers to twigs, you can recycle all your gardening debris. All you need to do is place the green waste into your green, re-usable sack and leave it at the kerbside on your normal collection day.

If you haven’t registered yet, there’s still time! You can register for the FREE service, quickly and easily online at www.rctcbc.gov.uk/GreenWaste.

If you do not have access to online services you can call 01443 425001, between 08.30am and 5pm Monday to Friday. You will then receive your TWO FREE re-usable sacks to start green waste recycling.

Extra/replacement sacks are available but will be subject to a £3 charge per sack. This charge covers the cost of the sack only. Each sack is equivalent in size to two and half clear recycling bags.

Before the new sacks were introduced, we collected an average of around 8,200 tonnes of green waste annually – this equates to 2,739,000 full recycling bags being collected!

Please ensure that you remove all earth/soil from your green waste as we are currently unable to recycle these as part of your kerbside green waste collection.

The sacks can be used for green waste, such as grass, cuttings, twigs cut to a manageable size and small vegetarian animal waste. We WON’T collect rubble, clodges or wood as part of this collection. Animal waste should only include sawdust/hay and not other animal waste such as dog waste and cat litter. You MUST NOT overfill the sacks.

Green/garden waste can still be taken to one of our many Community Recycling Centres (CRCs) in Rhondda Cynon Taf, but it MUST NOT be in a clear recycling bag and will need to be tipped loose into the available container. All CRCs are still operating under winter opening hours - 8am to 5.30pm – this will change to 8am-7.30pm on Monday 27th March.

You are reminded to clearly label your sacks with your property number/name. Each sack is registered to an individual property and we will only collect the number of sacks that are registered to a property. Crews will be making every effort to return the sacks to properties as securely as possible.

Steve Owen, Service Director for Streetcare Services said:

“I would like to thank residents for signing up to the scheme and joining us in our fight against Climate Change. The changes made to the green waste collection service last year and the upcoming black bag and bin collection changes are all helping to reduce the Council’s carbon footprint and bring us closer to hitting the Welsh Government recycling target of 70% by 2024/25.

“More and more residents are taking advantage of our fantastic weekly kerbside recycling collection service.

“I urge all our residents who are not currently recycling to come together to UP our Recycling GAME - the changes that we all make to our habits now will ensure that we avoid significant fines and safeguard a brighter world for future generations – it’s a GAME we can’t afford to lose!

Please note: We are unable to collect old or damaged sheds and patio sets. These items along with other garden waste, including soil and earth, can be taken to one of our Community Recycling Centres, which will soon be operating under their spring/summer opening times (8am - 7.30pm) from Monday March 27th. Current winter opening times remain at 8am – 5.30pm until this date.

For further information please visit www.rctcbc.gov.uk/GreenWaste, email recycling@rctcbc.gov.uk, call 01443 425001 or follow the Council on Facebook/Twitter.

Posted on 06/03/2023