Garden waste service to be resumed
Garden waste collections in Oxford will resume from Monday 4 May.
The return of garden waste collections in early May will see a permanent change to the normal collection week; garden waste bins will now be collected in the same week as green bins and lilac sacks, not with the blue bins.
The increasing volume of blue bin waste means it is not possible to revert to the old system with staff reduced in number by sickness and self-isolation.
Oxford City Council is urging residents not to leave out additional garden waste which is not contained in your bin or eco sack, as it cannot collect it.
Residents are asked to put the garden waste bins and brown eco sacks out the evening before collection or by 6am on collection day.
ALL collections due on 5-8 May will move one day earlier due to the 8 May bank holiday. This means that if your usual collection day is Tuesday 5 May, that week it will be on Monday 4 May. If your usual collection falls on Wednesday 6 May, your collection will be on Tuesday 5 May instead, and so on. This applies to this bank holiday week only.
Garden waste bins need to be placed out for collection on the new assigned day with the green bins. For the time being, it will not be possible to return for missed garden waste bins or brown eco sacks.
Councillor Nigel Chapman, Cabinet Member for Customer Focused Services, said: "We had no choice other than to suspend the garden waste service in March as we needed to divert our resources to services that are needed by every household in the city.
“During this time, many of our staff were unavoidably affected by the constraints that the coronavirus crisis and social isolation have brought, and the first priority for both the Council and ODS must be the health and safety of the collection crews, whilst maintaining essential waste collections.
“I am happy that we are in a position to restart collections and those residents who have paid for this service will once again have their garden waste removed."
Oxford City Council is making strenuous efforts to communicate the resumption of the service to all users in time before their next collection.
By the time the service restarts, it will have been suspended for a total of six weeks. As this is a subscription service, an additional six weeks will be added to each household’s contract automatically.
Councillor Chapman added: “I want to thank our front line crews who continue to courageously deliver services in very challenging times. This is in contrast to many local authorities, which have had to cut them back significantly.
“I know the Oxford crews really appreciate the support from members and the public, so please keep that support going over the weeks ahead."
From 27 April, we will also be able provide new bins for current subscribers and we will be able to open the service to new subscriptions.
For more information about the garden waste service visit: https://www.oxford.gov.uk/info/20070/garden_waste.
