Garden Waste

Home compost it

Please compost as much of your garden waste at home as you can.  Home composting avoids disposal costs, gives you a free supply of peat-free compost and reduces the environmental impacts of your waste. 

Our composting page gives advice on home composting along with details of special offers for purchasing home composting containers and garden waste shredders. Water butts, kitchen caddies and wormeries are also available.

Some garden waste such as soil, bricks, rubble and old fence panels can't be composted.  You can deliver small quantities of these free-of-charge to the Household Waste and Recycling Centre (HWRC) in Smugglers Way, Wandsworth. 

Take it to a local tip

• If you can't compost all your garden waste at home you can take it to a local tip or HWRCs.
• Local HWRCs have containers for garden waste so that it can be sent for composting. 

Or have it collected

• If you can, please compost garden waste at home or take it to a local tip or HWRC.  This will help to reduce the environmental impacts and the cost of dealing with it.
• Garden waste can be collected. Put it in tied refuse sacks and/or dustbins along with other domestic rubbish for collection.  Do not place it in orange recycling sacks.
• Garden waste suitable for collection includes grass cuttings, leaves and twigs, weeds, plants, flowers and hedge trimmings. Please note that the garden waste we collect gets mixed with general rubbish in the dustcart, so it cannot be composted.  Instead, it will be delivered to an energy-from-waste incinerator where it will help to generate electricity for the National Grid and any ashes will be recycled as construction aggregates.

What not to include

• Anything too big to fit in an ordinary dustbin or refuse sack can only be collected upon request and for a charge using the bulky waste collection service.
• Do not leave soil or rubble out for collection.
• Garden waste produced by paid gardeners- it is their waste and they should make appropriate arrangements to get rid of it.
• Japanese knotweed

Japanese Knotweed

On-site treatment is usually the best course of action to kill off Japanese Knotweed. Find out how to tackle it in your garden or visit the Royal Horticultural Society website.

Do not include any Japanese Knotweed in with your waste for collection or take it to local tips - you would be breaking laws controlling how this is dealt with and could be prosecuted.  Japanese Knotweed is harmful to the environment,  extremely invasive and is difficult to kill.  Further advice is available from Defra and the Environment Agency.

If you do want us to collect Japanese knotweed waste there will be a substantial charge. Please contact us for a quote.