Mid Sussex District Council is resuming garden waste collections from Monday 11 May.

As part of the Council’s response to the COVID-19 national emergency, garden waste collections were paused on 13 April to enable the collection crews to meet social distancing requirements and to preserve rubbish and recycling collections.

During the past month the Council has worked hard alongside waste collection partner Serco to secure additional resources that will enable our crews to practice social distancing and collect our customers’ garden waste safely. Collections were originally predicted to be suspended for a period of 12 weeks, but new working arrangements mean it is now possible to bring the service back after only a four-week pause.

When the service resumes on Monday 11 May, customers should place their garden waste bins out for collection on their usual collection day. Anyone who is not sure when their bin is due for collection can check online at www.midsussex.gov.uk/waste-recycling/bin-collection

The garden waste collection service has been paused for exactly four weeks and during that time each customer has missed two collections. To ensure that no household is financially disadvantaged by the suspension of the garden waste collection service, the Council will add four weeks onto the end of each subscription period to cover the number of collections missed.

Councillor John Belsey, Cabinet Member for Environment and Service Delivery said: “This has been a difficult month for everyone and we are so grateful to all our garden waste customers for their patience, support and understanding during the past few weeks.

“We know that garden waste collections are important to people, especially during this lockdown period, so we have been working as hard as we can with Serco to reinstate them safely as soon as possible. I’m delighted to say that we are now able to resume our garden waste collections.

“We really appreciate the efforts you are making to hold on to your garden waste but please remain patient for a little while longer once collections are back under way and we work through the build-up.

“Our crews are not able to collect any side waste so it’s important to make sure all your garden waste is contained within the bin and that the lid is closed. If you are unable to fit all your garden waste into your green wheelie bin, please continue to store it until your next scheduled collection. This will ensure the safety and wellbeing of our collection crews and that we can continue to offer a garden waste service to everyone.”

For more information, visit the garden waste collection page at www.midsussex.gov.uk/gardenwaste where there are answers to several Frequently Asked Questions. Anyone who is unable to find the answer to their query online should email gardenwaste@midsussex.gov.uk.