If composting isn’t for you then why not get your garden waste collected from your home, freeing up your day from making a trip to the recycling centre and giving you more time to enjoy your garden.

The council does not accept garden waste in the food waste collection. Garden waste dumped in refuse bins with other non-recyclable rubbish gives off harmful gases when processed.

But signing up to our garden waste service means your garden waste will be collected every second week and taken away to be converted into high quality compost, which ends up helping to grow more things, as well as being kind to the environment.

More than 13,500 residents are already using the council’s garden waste collection service – and even those with smaller gardens can get great value for money by sharing the bin and cost with a neighbour.

Once you sign up you will receive a green wheelie bin or green reusable sacks. Your garden waste will need to be presented at the front of your property by 7am each fortnight throughout spring, summer and autumn on your usual collection day.

Collections will pause from 1 December during the winter months when the demand is very low. However, Christmas tree collections will still take place during January. The full garden waste collection service will then resume on 1 March.

Annual subscriptions are £96.50 with concessionary rates of £73.80 if you are aged 65 or over or on means tested benefits. The annual payment is required when you sign-up.

How to sign up or renew

It is quick and easy to sign-up and make card payment online using the council’s MyAccount customer portal.

Go to www.ealing.gov.uk/myaccount to register a new account or sign in to your existing account and fill in the garden waste collection service form.

If you need help to subscribe or pay online, you can call customer services on 020 8825 6000, 9am to 5pm on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday and 10am to 5pm on Wednesday. You can also visit a community hub in Acton, Ealing, Northolt, and Southall libraries where a member of staff can help you.

Do you have a current subscription?

Your current garden waste subscription will run out on 31 March 2024 and will not automatically renew.

If you would like your garden waste collection to continue, please make payment for the 2024/25 service year, which runs from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, by 30 April 2024 to avoid missing out on collections.

If you have recently signed up for the new service year and made payment on My Account, you do not need to take further action.

Councillor Deirdre Costigan, the council’s cabinet member for climate action, said: “Ealing is consistently one of the top 3 boroughs in London when it comes to our recycling rate and more people using our garden waste service helps us go even further.

“Once collected, your garden waste is recycled into high quality compost and used on farms and other gardens. It’s a perfect circle.

“Across the borough, more than 13,500 residents are already using the council’s collection service – including some who take out a joint subscription with neighbours to split the cost.”

If you are having problems with the online process, please contact the My Account portal helpline on 020 8825 7733.

To bin your garden waste in an environmentally friendly way, visit www.ealing.gov.uk/gardenwaste.

The cost of the garden waste service for this year has risen in line with inflation to reflect the cost to the council of providing the service.

Like most councils, most of Ealing Council’s funding (about 70%) has to be spent on adult and children’s social care, both statutory services. This leaves very little for other services and the council is therefore unable to subsidise the garden waste service which is a discretionary service offered to residents lucky enough to have a garden.

The council has benchmarked the service against other councils and this has identified that councils are increasingly moving to a three season service which pauses in the low growth winter months after leaf fall where it does not spend precious council resources on collecting significantly lower amounts of garden waste.

If needed, you can bin your garden waste in the household waste and recycling centre in Greenford over the winter months and disposed of for free.