Garden waste collections resume next week in Reading

Garden waste collections will begin in Reading again from Monday 7 February, having been temporarily paused due to the impact of COVID-19.

Existing green bin or bag subscribers will get an extension to their collection period for weeks lost, as the scheduled Christmas pause began earlier than planned on Monday 13 December and continued on past its original intended restart date on Monday 10 January.

Any residents who had active subscriptions during the summer when collections were suspended for the same reason will also have those weeks added on to their current subscription.

Larger than normal volumes of garden waste are anticipated when the service resumes, and the Council has asked that to enable collections to take place from all subscribed residents, subscribers do not place excess garden waste next to their green bins. Excess garden waste should be stored and placed in green bins over future scheduled collections.

The pause was necessary to focus stretched resources on important residual waste, recycling and food waste over the festive period. The Council also opened up eleven Christmas tree collection centres across the borough throughout most of January, which saw over 2,500 Christmas trees collected and woodchipped.

Cllr Adele Barnett-Ward, Lead Member for Neighbourhoods and Communities, said:

“I would like to thank all residents who subscribe to the garden waste collection service for their patience over this challenging period and also to apologise for any inconvenience caused. It is testimony to the hard work of the team that despite the impact of the Omicron variant on Covid absences, Reading’s food waste, recycling, and grey bin collections continued uninterrupted through this latest wave, as they have throughout the pandemic. The pause in garden waste collections was necessary to protect these essential collections. We are now confident that we can operate the garden waste service without jeopardising these services and I look forward to the full waste service restarting as of Monday 7 February”.