Warnings have been issued that the price of brown bin permits in Moray could still rise further despite income never being higher.
Households wanting garden waste collected have had to stomach a 39% increase this year with the annual fee now £50.
Moray Council now has the joint highest charges in Scotland with only Glasgow and East Renfrewshire asking for the same amount.
Figures show that as of last week the local authority had sold 18,659 permits in the current financial year – still 3,340 less than last year.
However, income has never been higher with the cash generated increasing by 17.8% to £932,950 due to the price increase.
Could Moray brown bin permits go up in price again?
Garden waste permits were introduced in 2019/20 as Moray Council battled crippling budget cuts.
The service is not obligatory for local authorities to run and some, including Aberdeenshire, do not offer collections at all to households.
Permits cost £36 when they were first introduced, but were raised to £40 after just one year. They were reduced to £36 again last year in an attempt to entice more to buy them.
However, after the hoped-for uptake failed to materialise, the price of the permits were increased by 39% to £50 in an attempt to balance the books.
Marc Macrae is chairman of the council’s economic development and infrastructure committee. He told the Press and Journal the price could remain up for negotiation in the coming years while the cost of running collections is also examined.
He said: “We’ve been trying our best to cover the cost of collecting the bins, but at the same time the cost of doing that has also been going up, whether it’s fuel, equipment, staff wages or other things.
“Personally, I’ve got one less permit this year due to the cost. I’ve also seen the results of people dumping garden waste, on the way to the recycling centre, oddly enough.
“Ideally we also want people to use the brown bins because the garden waste doesn’t deliver the same potential in the green bin.
“This year it’s very much a watching brief. I expect brown bin permits to feature very heavily in budget discussions in the coming years though.”
How much cash has been generated from Moray brown bin permits?
Moray Council has now banked more than £5 million from the sale of garden waste permits in the six years they have been in operation.
The figure represents almost the entire budget the authority spends on leisure services every year.
However, there are concerns there has been a drop-off in purchases this year due to the increased price. This year’s figures will still likely increase due to permits remaining available to be bought.
- 2019/20: Fee £36, 20,408 permits sold, £734,688 income.
- 2020/21: Fee £40, 21,659 permits sold, £866,350 income.
- 2021/22: Fee £40, 22,230 permits sold, £889,200 income.
- 2022/23: Fee £40, 21,936 permits sold, £877,400 income.
- 2023/24: Fee £36, 21,999 permits sold, £791,964 income.
- 2024/25: Fee £50, 18,659 permits sold, £932,950 income. (figures taken on June 18)
Fears more garden waste could end up in landfill
Moray Council’s Labour group have previously called for brown bin charges to be removed and lobbied for the reduction to £36 in 2023/24 to increase usage.
Garden waste in Moray is currently taken to processors to produce compost. The region currently has the best recycling rate in Scotland.
Elgin North councillor Sandy Keith is worried less garden waste will be recycled as a result of less permits being sold.
He said: “The stuff that you would have expected to go into the brown bins then has to go somewhere else if people aren’t buying the permits.
“My understanding is that every day we’re selling another permit, but in May we were about 5,000 permits behind where we expected to be.
“The information I had was we expect to sell about 2,000 fewer permits this year, so that’s 2,000 households worth of brown waste going into the green bin and ferried through to Aberdeen.”
Conversation