With spring just around the corner, green-fingered households can unlock a full year’s worth of hassle-free gardening by acting now and subscribing to North Kesteven District Council’s garden waste collection service.
By signing up now you’ll enjoy the service as soon as it starts – perfect for the many gardening jobs which will soon start piling up as the weather warms – and benefit from a full year’s service of brown bin collections to help you.
Or if you’re already a 2024-25 garden waste customer, then signing up now for 2025-26 means you’ll enjoy a smooth continuation of collections as your current subscription ends and your new one begins seamlessly.
It takes just a few moments to do, at www.n-kesteven.gov.uk/gardenwaste You can also call the Council’s offices on 01529 414155. Remember – there’s nothing you need do if you’re a garden waste customer already paying by direct debit as you will be automatically renewed for the 2025/26 service.
You’ll receive confirmation, and then a welcome pack with a sticker and calendar will be posted to you before the start of this year’s service. Your collection dates will also be added alongside your black, green-lidded and purple bin dates on the Council’s online ‘find my bin day’ tool, so you can check collection days easily.
Garden waste collections save you loading up your car with green waste to go to a Household Waste Recycling Centre, or risking a fine if you pay someone and they simply dump it as fly-tipping. During the past year over 34,600 households took up the service and had their grass and hedge clippings, twigs, leaves, weeds, flowers and more taken away collected from their brown bins. It’s still useful in winter too, as you can dispose of small branches and even your real Christmas tree if chopped into little pieces and put in the brown bin.
The annual subscription for the service runs from Monday March 24 2025 to Friday March 20 2026. Collections during that period are every other week over ten months, and then four-weekly through both December and January when the cold weather means there’s less garden waste to collect.
North Kesteven District Council Executive Member with special interest for Environment and Waste Councillor Mark Smith said: “While saving you trips to the tip or finding a licensed waste carrier that you can be sure won’t fly-tip your waste and put you at risk of a fine, our service also gives you the confidence that your garden waste is being disposed of properly and will be turned into compost through an arrangement managed by the County Council.
“A wide range of garden waste can be accepted which also delivers great value for money, especially given that the cost for the service this year is frozen at last year’s price for the collection of existing brown bins.”
For those with an existing brown bin it will cost £45 for collections across 2025/26, frozen at the previous year’s price. It’s the equivalent of paying just 87p per week across the year, or still less than £2 for each of the 24 or 25 brown bin collection opportunities through the year. The cost for collections of additional existing brown bins throughout the year are also frozen at last year’s price of £8 each, for up to four bins in total per household.
Where a brown bin is needed to participate in the service, or you’d like an extra bin at your home, these are now charged at £47 each from 1 April.
You can opt in to the garden waste service part-way through the year, however there is no reduction in the cost if doing so.
Please remember that no material left alongside bins can be taken, and that garden waste cannot be placed in black general waste bins.
To see the full range of things which can go in garden waste bins, and what can go into your other household bins, see the Council’s Right things for the Right Bins leaflet and A-Z of recycling on the waste webpage here.
To check your bin day at any time, visit the find my bin day webpage here.
You can also sign up for e-newsletters here at any time including waste information and updates.