Residents can sign up for East Lothian Council’s 2025/2026 garden waste collection service from Monday, 12 May.
Permit applications can be made using a myeastlothian account on the council’s website until the sign-up window closes at 3pm on Friday, 4 July.
The garden waste permit charge is £35 - the same cost as last year when around 24,000 householders registered to use the scheme. Collections will run fortnightly between 1 September 2025 and 28 August 2026.
Permit stickers will be delivered in August to every household which signs up showing the address and permit number for the registered property. Council collection crews will only empty brown bins with a valid sticker clearly displayed and they will check the sticker details match the address. There is a strict limit of one brown bin per household.
Residents will also receive a calendar with the permit pack displaying the day and week of their bin collection.
Anyone who signed up online to last years’ service through a myeastlothian account will receive an email reminder in the coming days.
If you do not have a brown bin at your property, register for a permit first then contact wasteservices@eastlothian.gov.uk to order a bin and we will arrange to have one delivered to your address.
Councillor John McMillan, East Lothian Cabinet Spokesperson for Environment, Economic Development and Tourism, said: “The decision was made to introduce a charge for garden waste collection in 2023. Such kerbside collections are not a statutory service and, with reducing budgets and increasing costs, it was necessary for the council to seek contributions towards the expense of keeping them.
“Households do not have to use this service and residents can dispose of garden waste free of charge at our recycling centres.
“Garden waste including grass cuttings, leaves, bark, flowers, plants, hedge trimmings, weeds, twigs/small branches are all accepted materials in brown bins.
“For flats with shared areas, it is the residents’ responsibility to organise registration and payment for the service. This may be done by splitting the cost but only one person should order the permit and pay the full amount.”