Leeds to resume brown bin and free bulky waste collections this month

Speaking at a virtual press conference today (Wednesday), the council’s director of communities, James Rogers, added that bulky waste collections would also recommence free of charge in the coming weeks.

It follows news on Tuesday that the authority would reopen household waste recycling centres once the Government’s lockdown was relaxed.

Mr Rogers said: “We have had 3.2 million bin collections over the last four to five weeks, and that has led to a 20 percent increase in waste that we have had to deal with.

“The brown bin garden waste collections, are scheduled to start operating again from Monday, May 25.

“We are going to introduce new routes – we have been doing work over the last year to make sure we can have an extended garden waste collection.

“The bulky waste collection will be introduced on Monday May 18. We recognise a number of households are isolating, we are going to be offering that service free of charge.

“We expect that to be a busy service, done again on bookings, so we ask people to be patient with this.”

Households with a brown bin collection will be sent a letter a few days beforehand, informing them of their first brown bin collection day.

On the free bulky waste collections, this service is expected to be limited, and residents to store waste if possible.

The announcement follows a plea from Conservative councillor Paul Wadsworth, who called on the authority to reintroduce brown bin collections, although it is understood the authority was planning for the reintroduction since last week.

Coun Wadsworth said yesterday: “It is becoming increasingly clear that residents need more support to help them manage their waste and not become inundated in their homes with garden and household waste.

“We believe that there has been a significant increase in fly tipping on private land in recent months and whilst there may have been a reduction on council owned land, overall we think fly tipping is becoming more of a problems for Leeds residents.

“We therefore believe that it is now time for the council to re-open all household waste collection sites and also reinstate the brown bin service to collect garden waste that will have built up as residents have tried to keep busy tending to their gardens.”

For more details, visit: https://news.leeds.gov.uk/news/update-regarding-potential-reopening-of-leeds-household-waste-and-recycling-centres.