London,
27
July
2009
|
23:00
Europe/London

Be a greener gardener this summer

It’s summertime and gardens are flourishing. If you are thinking about tidying up your garden why not use the Council’s Brown Bin scheme to collect garden waste or try composting at home with our subsidised bins and wormeries.

The Brown Bin service is a fortnightly collection of garden waste, including leaves, lawn trimmings, hedge cuttings, small branches, plants and flowers, for composting.

It is currently available to around 15,000 properties in Hackney. Residents can have a large 140 litre wheelie bin or a supply of single use 100 litre compostable brown sacks to collect garden waste. This will be turned into compost for use on the borough’s parks and green spaces.

The Council also offers composting units, including wormeries, bokashi bins and wooden compost bins, at reduced prices form as little as £9 each, including delivery.

Composting not only reduces your waste bin, it also produces a free fertiliser and soil improver which can be used on flower beds, plots, and window boxes. Even if you only have a patio, you still can play your part in helping the environment by using a wormery.

Councillor Alan Laing, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, said: “By recycling or composting your garden waste instead of just throwing it away you can help to reduce the amount of biodegradable materials that enter the waste stream, and do your bit to help make Hackney a greener borough.”

Brown Bins are available to residents on roads currently covered by the scheme. But the service is continually expanding and new roads can be added, subject to assessment and approval.

To find out more about having the Brown Bin service in your street, please phone the recycling hotline on 020 8356 6688 or email: recycling@hackney.gov.uk

For more information about home composting visit the Council’s website: www.hackney.gov.uk/waste_prevention