Freeze on cost of 2025/26 garden waste bin permits
12th June 2025
Garden Waste Permits from Highland Council are now available for the 2025/26 season. To support continued garden waste recycling, the price for the upcoming 2025/26 permit will remain unchanged at £48.95 per permit, the same as last year. There are between 19 and 20 collections per season depending on which day of the week collections fall, which equates to approximately £2.50 per collection for each garden waste bin.
Councillor Graham MacKenzie, Chair of the Communities and Place Committee said: "Although our service costs have gone up, the Council has agreed to freeze the price of the garden waste permit at £48.95 this year, in light of ongoing financial pressures faced by many households. By maintaining the price, we can avoid passing on any increases to our customers this year. We hope this decision encourages our current customers to keep up their fantastic recycling efforts and inspires others to sign up and join the service."
Permits are now available to purchase online and through the Service Point network for the 2025/26 permit season.
Current 2024/25 permit holders will receive renewal reminders over the coming weeks and the optional fortnightly garden waste collection service is also available to new customers who live within the designated collection areas. Householders can visit the Council's website to check if they live in a garden waste collection service area.
Councillor MacKenzie continued: "Recycling garden waste like grass cuttings, leaves, branches, hedge trimmings and flowers plays a key role in our overall recycling efforts here in Highland. People often think of recycling as just paper, cardboard, cans, and plastics—but garden waste is just as important and makes a real difference to our recycling rates. Garden waste could be composted at home or taken to Household Waste Recycling Centres or recycled through the garden waste collection service rather than being thrown away in non-recyclable waste bins. It is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint to create a healthier, more sustainable Highland and to help combat climate change."
The new permit season starts on Monday 1 September 2025 and runs to 31 August 2026, with a winter break in the months of December, January and February. Demand for permits will be high in the weeks immediately prior to the 2025/26 service commencing in September, therefore householders are encouraged to sign-up by 1 August to ensure they receive permits in time for the first collections.
Customers can continue to order garden waste permits after 1 August; however, the Council cannot guarantee that permits ordered beyond this date will arrive in time for the first collections of the 2025/26 permit year.
The service is optional, and householders are also able to take their garden waste along to their local Household Waste Recycling Centre free of charge.
For more information, please visit www.highland.gov.uk/gardenwaste or e-mail recycle@highland.gov.uk
Related Businesses
Related Articles
Wick Business Park has welcomed wind energy technology company ENERCON as the first occupant of one of four new units completed last year. ENERCON specialises in designing, producing, installing and servicing onshore wind turbines and has been operating in the Caithness area since 2013.
Additional empty homes officers are being recruited to bring more privately owned houses back into use. The new posts are being supported as part of a £2 million investment through the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership in 2025-26 which will see staff take a more proactive and targeted approach to tackling local housing issues.
The Highland Strategic Local Action Group (LAG) met in June 2025 and considered and agreed funding for 28 projects submitted to the Community-Led Local Development fund (CLLD), which makes up part of The Highland Council Community Regeneration Fund (CRF) programme. CRF is an umbrella term used to cover multiple external funding programmes administered by The Highland Council.
Highland Council has provided 12 ‘Talking Tub' resources for use in primary schools across the Highlands, in partnership with Union Technical who deliver community benefits as part of the Energy Efficient Scotland: Area Based Scheme programme. Chair of Highland Council's Education Committee, Councillor John Finlayson, said: "This is a fantastic initiative being rolled out across Highland primary schools which brings innovation and inspiration to early years children.
Visitors will find it easier to dispose of their litter at several popular spots across Highland after the rollout of additional bins. The rollout has been planned to support the tourism season as part of the Council's ongoing commitment to improve and support sustainable tourism in the area.
Members of the meeting of The Highland Council (26 June 2025) have considered and agreed the Accounts Commission's Best Value report, which was published in April 2025 and highlights organisational improvements across leadership, performance management and community engagement. In April’s report, the Accounts Commission recognised and welcomed significant progress within the organisation since the 2020 Best Value Assurance Report (BVAR) and commended the embedded culture of transformation.
A new generation of community facilities is being planned for the Highlands. At a meeting of The Highland Council (Thursday 26 June), elected members approved the work to date in progressing the Highland Investment Plan workstreams - masterplan for Thurso and agreed to nominate the current Thurso High School site as the preferred location for the new Thurso Community Point of Delivery (POD).
At a meeting of The Highland Council (Thursday 26 June 2025), Members received a progress report on the partnership approach and important successes since declaring a Highland Housing Challenge in November 2023. Since establishing the ambitious Highland Housing Challenge, important successes included: A call for sites delivered 250 sites, with a potential 25,000 housing units which will support delivery against the target of an additional 12,000 houses over the next 10 years.
The Highland Council will deliver a transformative programme of energy efficiency upgrades across Council housing supported by a £9.2 million Energy Company Obligation (ECO) funding proposal secured by Union Technical. The funding proposal will deliver approximately 1,000 individual energy efficiency measures to Council owned properties across the Highlands.
As part of the Highland Council's celebration of Refugee Week - 16 to 22 June - we are delighted to announce that a sharing of photographs, taken by separated young people seeking asylum living within the Highlands, is to be shown at Eden Court Arts Centre, Inverness. Look to See, which ties in with the theme for this year’s Refugee Week - Community as a Superpower - emerges out of a collaboration between multiple agencies working alongside separated young people seeking asylum, embodying the importance of community and connection, when looking to support all young people in the Highlands.
