At C J Garden Services taking ownership of all our waste is very important to us, and we would always advise people employing gardeners or contractors to ask questions as to where the waste is taken when removed from their property.
C J Garden Services are licenced waste carriers, and when working on any of our customers’ gardens, all of our green waste is taken to a local recycling depot and it is turned into compost.
You can also do this with your regular garden waste, although the service isn’t free. Here are some further tips for disposing of your regular garden waste:
Get someone to collect it
You can check what services your local council has for where to dispose of garden waste here: https://www.gov.uk/garden-waste-disposal
Some councils provide a home collection service for garden waste too, but there may be a small fee for this.
Composting at home
Composting your green waste can save you a lot of money as well as being good for the environment.
The best way is to use a compost bin rather than a piled up in a messy open heap, as a bin can be tucked away neatly in the garden and even hidden from sight. Bins also work without much effort from you. Unlike compost heaps, which need proper management, you can chuck rubbish into a bin any time you have soft leafy green waste to get rid of.
How to get rid of excess soil
If the waste is soil rather than grass and cuttings, depending on how much you've got, don’t rush to get rid of it. You will find that newly-dug borders and areas around plants sink over winter, and you may need to top up the soil come spring time. If you have room, you could keep it in old compost bag or rubble sack in a shed or garage until needed.
If you really need to get rid though, perhaps consider a local allotment and ask if they want any excess soil. Or advertise it on a local ‘freegle’type website - someone might be grateful and come and take it all away for you.
You can obviously also check with your local recycling depot as to whether they will let you put soil in with 'hardcore waste' and some local skip companies will also provide 1 tonne waste bags and then take them away once filled, with the average cost around £30-£50 a bag.
How to dispose of garden chemicals safely
Most gardeners at some point or another need to dispose of a half-empty bottle of weedkiller, or even empty containers that have been used for storing weedkiller.
Any empty ‘ready to use’ containers can be placed in household recycling, empty ‘concentrated’ containers (i.e. requiring dilution for use)should be rinsed three times, adding the washings to your final spray solution and then disposed of in general household waste. Containers that have held concentrated product are not suitable for recycling.
Please never dispose of the unwanted product in drains, sinks, lavatories, watercourses or ditches. If you do have unwanted garden care chemicals, you will need to dispose of them through the local waste authority.