Haringey Labour refuse to abolish green waste charges

At the meeting of Full Council last night (20 November 2023) a Liberal Democrat plan to abolish charging for garden waste was voted down by the Labour administration. This is despite the fact that the council’s own reports have shown that free collections can achieve up to 80-90% participation rate in households with garden waste when compared to just 35% only under charged services.

Haringey is committed to achieve a recycling target of 50% of all household waste by 2030, but currently achieves a level of just 30.4%. The level of recycling has decreased since 2017, when green waste charges were first introduced. The council’s own study found that 2% of this decrease has been caused by the charges.

Other councils in London, including neighbouring Islington, do not charge for this service.

Cllr Scott Emery (LD-Highgate), Opposition Spokesperson for the Environment, said:

“The experiment of charging for garden waste has been a failure. It has failed to raise the expected revenue, hit our recycling rates, and has gone on for far too long. Failure to remove charges for garden waste collection signifies one thing: that Haringey’s Labour council is not truly committed to recycling.