Recently I had the opportunity to review Crawley Borough Council’s GREENbin service with my Cabinet Member for the Environment Nick Hilton.
We were delighted to see how successful it has become, remains excellent value for money and plays an important part in helping increase our overall recycling rates. For 2024/25 we collected a huge 2,600 tonnes contributing 7.5% towards the council’s recycling rate.
For those who may not be yet aware of the service, the GREENbin service is an optional, chargeable wheeled bin service for your garden waste. It costs £78.10 per year and is a convenient and cost-effective way of easily disposing of grass cuttings, hedge trimmings and weeds, saving time and money in journeys to the tip, cleaning the car and fuel costs and emissions.
Collections are made fortnightly and operates for 50 weeks per year with a 2-week break over the Christmas period. If you don’t produce much garden waste but would like to join the service, why not consider sharing with a neighbour?
After the garden waste is collected by our collection trucks, it is taken to the Crawley Transfer Station where it is bulked up into large vehicles and transported to Olus composting facility near Henfield. Here it is converted into top quality compost ready to be sold to consumers and businesses in bulk.
We currently have 11,545 households in Crawley who have garden waste bins, and it is clear how good the service is because people vote with their feet: the numbers of households taking this up has had a net increase of 772 over the past three years.
This does mean that nearly a third of all individual households in Crawley have chosen to have a garden waste bin.
And for an annual cost of £78.10 which helps cover the council’s running costs associated with providing the service through our contractor Biffa and other costs such as the supply of bins, this is excellent value for money, working out at around £3.25 per collection, or £1.56 per week. The price CBC charges also compares very favourably to other council areas in West Sussex, with four out of the six other West Sussex authorities charging amounts much nearer £100 a year.
There’s no doubt in my mind that our waste team provides a great service for residents – so to all our green fingered residents I say, if you haven’t taken it up yet, why not consider adding this great value for money council service? You can sign up through MyCrawley, the council’s online portal for all residents.
Cllr Michael Jones
Leader, Crawley Borough Council