WEST Devon?s latest recycling scheme, Green and Clean, is on its way for the residents of Tavistock, Okehampton, Yelverton and Dousland.
So now is the time for residents to start filling up their new recycling bags with garden waste and thick card ready for the free fortnightly collection from the kerbside. The first bags will be picked up on Monday October 18.
The West Devon Borough Council project is funded by a £300,000 grant funded by Defra and will run in addition to the council?s green recycling box scheme which is collected weekly with household refuse.
Residents living in certain pilot areas of Tavistock, Okehampton, Dousland and Yelverton are currently being issued with two 90 litre bags and an information leaflet giving collection dates for the next 12 months.
In the bag should go thick card, grass cuttings, hedge trimmings, weeds, plants and twigs, branches ? up to the thickness of your wrist ? and vase flowers.
The card and garden waste will be composted together at a site in Plymouth and will be sold as West Country Compost. The product can be purchased from local garden centres.
Earlier this month the council staged four roadshows in the area to promote the new scheme with Radio 4 gardening celebrity Anne Swithinbank, from Gardeners? Question Time, and Devon gardening expert Matt Bishop from The Garden House at Buckland Monachorum.
Anne was full of praise for the scheme.
She said: ?It?s an excellent environmental project.
?Garden cuttings turn into lovely organic matter and it?s great to think it can come back into our soil and enrich it.?
West Devon?s recycling team will be helping residents with home composting in other areas of the borough where the new scheme is not in place.
For further information about the Green and Clean scheme and home composting call the council?s green waste helpline on 01822 813655.