Is there any point separating garden waste?

Posted by hamlet_lottery@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 20 comments

My council (Wandsworth) collects up to 5 bags of garden waste a week in black sacks for free. Their website says it’s all incinerated. I always wondered how they ‘know’ it’s garden waste if it’s all in black sacks, or if there’s any sorting phase once it gets to the incinerator. Or, is this basically their way of saying ‘we don’t offer a special garden waste/composting service’?. I still put it in separate bags but if it’s all getting burned together anyway I wonder if there’s any practical point in doing this.

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20 Comments

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ARealTim@reddit

I'm no expert but I strongly suspect that Wandsworth have a specialist incinerator facility specifically for garden waste and that they do sort the garden waste they collect and remove stuff that can't/shouldn't be incinerated like concrete, stones, bricks, plastics, etc, etc. Even if the council also incinerates othery types of waste I would guess that they do this in a separate facility that is set up for this type of waste - they don't just bung it all in together.

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hamlet_lottery@reddit (OP)

Interesting, I also wonder at what stage the sorting happens. Roadside by the bin men or if the bags are opened at a later stage?

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manic47@reddit

It's usually sorted at MRFs, the places where recycling bin lorries unload. Recycled waste is spilt out into different types by a combination of automated, mechanised sorting and manually into things like card, glass, plastic & paper. It's an absolutely horrible job to do by hand, so the customer I have who operate them for councils uses agency staff permanently. You can imagine what unwashed food packaging smells like after a week in the sun... then having to pick through and sort them. Probably helps if you aren't fazed by flies either...

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YodasGoldfish@reddit

I did that job for 6 hours. Absolutely horrid.

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manic47@reddit

It's why they use agency staff

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Illustrious-Log-3142@reddit

Ex did some work for a big national waste company years ago animating their processes for a video. Waste is usually sorted on arrival with different methods like screens, magnets and humans going through it. Garden waste is probably more manual than some of the recycling methods

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ARealTim@reddit

The bin men may have a quick look to make sure its garden waste but there is almost certainly a sorting facility at the waste processing site.

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YodasGoldfish@reddit

Our council started charging for the garden waste collection last year (£45) we halved in with a neighbour. I don't know what it costs this year, I'm taking it to the tip myself. They used to collect it for no extra charge .

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ClevelandWomble@reddit

I'm surprised. Garden waste has a huge moisture content that would make incineration quite inefficient. Composting or Anaerobic Digestion would have been my first thought. I suppose that it's possible they use the low grade waste heat from burning the municipal waste to pre-dry the garden waste. In that case, separating it would make sense.

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BG3restart@reddit

I am astonished that you have such a service. Most of the country now has to pay a separate fee for garden waste collection, in a separate bin, and it's only collected about every three weeks.

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firthy@reddit

Nearly 100 quid in Croydon 🤬

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DXS110@reddit

Ours used to collect 6 bags every two weeks, cost about £60 a year. The bags, you could buy from them were small but you could use your own so I got some much larger bags. Now they only do one bin which you have to buy from them, the bin is tiny

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spikewilliams2@reddit

Yes ours used to collect it for compost for free, then one year realised they could charge for it so they could make double the council tax cap that year.

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Fantastic-Dingo-5806@reddit

This is crazy, why is this council picking easily compostable waste up in bags and burning it? What year is this?

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hamlet_lottery@reddit (OP)

Fwiw I also think this is a crazy setup and I compost most of it myself!

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Clamps55555@reddit

Yer I don’t know but I wouldn’t be surprised if like you say it’s there way of not offering the garden waist service. I would think it gets sorted with all the rest.

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herne_hunted@reddit

Surprising decision really.Our council just leaves the garden waste in a huge heap for a year then sells it back to us as compost. Doesn't seem difficult.

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Flat_News_2000@reddit

Why would you care how they know? Just put your stuff in the sacks and you'll be fine. You'll get a fine if they fine it doesn't have the correct items in the sack but everybody should know this.

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hamlet_lottery@reddit (OP)

It doesn’t keep me awake at night but I was just curious.

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