Introduction
We collect garden waste every two weeks for subscribers. You can use:
- 180-litre wheeled bins
- 90-litre compostable paper sacks
Manage your subscription
Use our online form to:
- order bins or sacks
- renew a subscription
- check your subscription status
- move or cancel a garden subscription
- order more sacks
- order a replacement bin
- request a garden waste bin to be removed
Subscribe to or update your subscription
Use this form to check the status or expiry date of your existing subscription:
Check your current garden waste subscription
We send emails to subscribers each year to remind them about renewal. This usually happens during the first week of the month before your subscription ends.
We do not give refunds for cancelling the service during the year. Make sure you check the terms and conditions at the bottom of this page before placing an order.
The garden waste collection service is paused for two weeks after Christmas every year. The cost of a subscription takes this into consideration. Garden waste collections may also be halted during periods of severe weather.
Bin and sack prices
- A wheeled bin subscription: £68
- A pack of ten garden waste sacks: £33.60
These prices are valid until 31 March 2025.
Please read the service terms and conditions at the bottom of this page.
Other services
What we collect
We collect:
- Flowers and plants
- grass cuttings
- hedge trimmings
- leaves
- Small branches (less than 15cm or 6 inches wide) and bark
- Straw or sawdust (if bedding material, then only small quantities from household vegetarian pets, such as rabbits and hamsters, but not from micro-pigs, aviary birds, chickens, or pigeons)
Do not put any of the following with your garden waste:
- Plastics, including plastic plant pots and plastic bags
- Metal, glass, stone, rubble, ceramics, soil, turf, compost or clay flower pots
- Compostable or biodegradable bags or other containers
- Food or food waste, vacuum cleaner waste, nappies
- Cat litter, dog or cat waste, dead animals
- Bedding materials or waste from micro-pigs, chickens, pigeons, aviary birds
- Material treated with herbicides containing aminopyralid, clopyralid, picloram or similar persistent chemicals (follow manufacturer’s guidance on disposal of vegetation)
- Treated wood; material with Ash Dieback (Charala Fraxinea)
- Injurious plants including common Ragwort, Broad-leaved Dock, Curled Dock, Creeping Thistle, Spear Thistle
- Plants affected by honey fungus, should instead be burned
- Invasive plants, including Japanese Knotweed, Giant Hogweed, Himalayan Balsam, Rhododendron Ponticum, New Zealand Pigmyweed
Collections guidance
On collection days:
- Put your bins or sacks out by 7am.
- Do this no earlier than the night before.
- Keep bin lids closed.
- Do not block paths or roads.
- Bring bins in as soon as you can after collection.
Garden waste sacks come in packs of 10 and can be ordered using the My Waste Services feature.
For sacks to be collected, you must request a collection using My Waste Services before midday on the day before your scheduled collection day.
Garden waste should not be put out for refuse collections. We do not advise burning garden waste, as this can cause pollution and local nuisance.
Why we charge for collection
Collection charges cover the cost of providing the service. Only people using the service pay for it, rather than all council tax payers. Home composting is an ideal alternative, or take garden waste to a recycling site.
Your garden waste goes to one of several composting sites in Somerset, where it is shredded and turned into compost.
The compost is sold as revive soil conditioner through all recycling sites.
Terms and conditions
Somerset Council carries out garden waste collections in Somerset in fulfilment of its duties under section 45 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. This contract sets out the basis on which we will provide the Garden Waste Collection Service to residents.