THOUSANDS more residents in Teesdale can now sign up for garden waste collections, county chiefs say.
Rotters, a not-for profit organisation, has confirmed it will no longer be collecting green waste. The organisation, which had about 2,500 customers, had accused the county council of not offering enough financial support – a claim denied by County Hall.
Durham County Council last week announced it will take over the collections and said it is able to collect green waste from 7,000 homes that were not getting the service. It means the majority of homes in the dale will now get their green waste collected, although it is understood some hard-to-reach properties may miss out. Collections begin in March.
A spokesperson said: “We currently operate a bin-based garden waste collection service across County Durham. Last year there were over 66,000 subscriptions for the service including people in parts of Teesdale.
“People in other Teesdale communities have until now had their garden waste collected by Rotters Community Composting.
“This has been with our support in continuation of arrangements dating back to the days of Teesdale District Council. As Rotters has now told us it will not be providing the service from this year, we have put in place plans to offer our garden bin collections to residents in Teesdale communities we have not previously served.”
John Shannon, Durham County Council strategic waste manager, said: “We are pleased now to be able to offer our garden waste collections to even more residents in Teesdale from March.
“People can sign up to the service from today. We would appreciate it if those who are interested could do so online as this helps us add them to our system quickly, although there are other ways to subscribe.
“Everyone who signs up will be provided with a bin at no extra charge but we would ask them to bear with us as there are potentially thousands to deliver.”
The cost to subscribe for 2023 is £38 for the garden waste season and that includes the initial cost of the first bin and delivery of it.
Anyone signing up before March 1 will receive all 17 fortnightly collections to November.
The council said garden waste collection days may be different to their rubbish and recycling collections. Collection date calendars and a sticker will be provided to each subscribing household.
Mr Shannon added: “We would like to place on record our thanks to Rotters for providing such a good and very popular service to people in Teesdale for almost 20 years.
“We were very sorry to hear those collections were ending but we are now looking ahead to offering our own service to anyone who would like it across Teesdale.”
