Aberdeenshire Council look at ways to deal with garden waste

Councillors have backed plans for the council to support community composting.

Council officers had drawn up four options to deal with garden waste across the region.

Back in August, councillors discussed plans to start a kerbside collection service.

But members of the infrastructure services committee decided to host a workshop first to consider all of the options in full before making a final decision.

Recent figures revealed that just over 8,000 tonnes of garden waste is currently sent to refill in Aberdeenshire.

The issue of garden waste was raised as residents are preparing to move to a three-weekly collection service.

At a committee meeting last Thursday, councillors backed plans for the council to support community composting. This would allow residents to deal with their own garden waste while providing a “valuable” resource of compost to local communities.

Council officers said it could cost £60,000 a year to fund and has the potential to divert up to 400 tonnes of garden waste from going to landfill.

They also supported creating five new seasonal garden waste points in Cruden Bay, New Pitsligo, Aberchirder, Braemar and Torphins.

The new seasonal points would cost £49,000 to set up and could divert around 190 tonnes of garden waste.

At the moment, residents have to travel to one of the council’s 15 household recycling centres to deposit their grass cuttings and pruning scraps.

Alternatively they can visit one of the 12 seasonal waste collection points that operate from April to October.

Plans to start a kerbside garden waste collection service were scrapped due to budget concerns.

A service for all households would cost £3.7m to establish – but residents would have been charged £65 to use it.

Committee chairman John Crawley suggested the council explore budget cost neutral options going forward.

He also asked for officers to look at external funding opportunities to enable the expansion of the seasonal waste points. If funding can be found he asked for the new seasonal points to be up and running in the next financial year.