Town accuses county council over garden waste collections

Welshpool Town Council claims Powys County Council is not telling people about a grass and garden waste collection service because they intend to bin it.

And on Wednesday night the Town Council voted to dedicate a page in its’ next newsletter to promoting the county council run scheme. which sees residents able to buy bags which can be filled with garden waste and collected.

The proposal to promote the scheme came from the council’s finance and general purposed committee with town clerk Robert Robinson reporting that although it was advertised that bags could be bought from the library none were available.

A report from the committee also said that it was believed Powys County Council were reluctant to promote the scheme as they were considering replacing it and were not willing to let Welshpool Town Council sell the bags for them.

Finance committee chairman Richard Church said: “Powys County Council is simply not promoting this service and it would be helpful if the Town Council did so as it is a welcome service and the people of Welshpool should know about it.”

Councillor David Senior said: “It’s a scheme to help people recycle and it’s bonkers that Powys County Council is not promoting it.”

Councillor Phil Pritchard said: “I object very strongly to the fact that Powys County Council charges for the bags.”

Cllr Phyl Davies, Cabinet Member for Waste and Recycling, said: “The reason we do not promote the orange garden waste bags is because these bags are collected from the kerbside along with the residual waste and then landfilled as it is not feasible to separate this material for composting.

“Although we don’t currently collect garden waste for composting from households, we do have a number of community recycling sites where households can take their garden waste for composting.  This service is unique to Powys and is in addition to the facilities at the five household waste recycling centres.

“Basically the orange garden waste bags are provided as a last resort for householders who have no means of taking their garden waste to the central collection points.  Most householders either have their own transport or can get help from family or friends.  If residents employ the services of a commercial gardener, the supplier of that service should take the garden waste away as part of that service.

“It costs around £100 for every tonne of waste that goes into landfill so it is important that we divert as much waste as we can away from landfill, including garden waste.

“We are currently considering a garden waste collection service for households but given the costs of collecting and processing garden waste, this would have to be a charged-for service.”

The County Council web site says: “You can order orange garden waste bags from us, which are then collected from the kerbside by the collection crew on your normal black bin collection day, these will go into landfill. Garden waste bags can be purchased as a roll of 10. These bags can be purchased by contacting us.”