Residents can now sign up to Hartlepool Borough Council’s Garden Waste Subscription Service for 2026.
The annual subscription for one bin is £41, but residents may also choose to take out up to three additional subscriptions, each costing £27 plus the cost of the extra bins.
Only households that subscribe will have their garden waste bins emptied.
Brown bins will start being emptied from Tuesday 7 April and collections will continue until Friday 13 November, with residents receiving eight collections in total. To find out when the first collection will be in your area, please visit www.hartlepool.gov.uk/waste-recycling/bin-collection-days
To receive all eight collections, residents must subscribe before 23 March. If they miss this deadline, they will still be able to sign up, but they will only receive the remaining collections and pay the full price.
Residents who have signed up for auto renewals need do nothing else – their subscription will be renewed automatically. They will receive an email confirming their subscription and a sticker will be sent out in the post before their first collection is due. This must be placed on their bin for it to be emptied.
For more information about the service and to subscribe go to www.hartlepool.gov.uk/waste-recycling/garden-waste-subscription-service
Councillor Owen Riddle, Chair of Hartlepool Borough Council’s Neighbourhoods and Regulatory Services Committee, said: “I’d like to thank the thousands of residents who have signed up annually for this service since it was launched.
“As a local authority, we are committed to increasing our recycling rates, so we would encourage even more people to support us by subscribing as soon as possible.”
Last year, just over 13,000 households subscribed and 1,831 tonnes of garden waste was collected and taken to be composted at a local facility.
Only loose, compostable garden waste should be place in a brown bin. It should not be put in plastic bags or any other sort of packaging as this affects the composting process and reduces the quality of the compost produced.
Residents who choose not to subscribe, can dispose of their garden waste for free at the Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) in Burn Road. However, given that a booking system is currently in the process of being reintroduced at the HWRC, brown bin collections remain the most convenient way of disposing of garden waste. Home composting is another that residents might want to consider.
The Council says that charging for garden waste collections - as most other local authorities do - is fair as the service is only used by those households that choose to subscribe – and not all properties in Hartlepool require collections. The charge helps to reduce the cost of running the overall waste collection service which includes general and recyclable waste.