A message from the online version of Lewisham Life

'Did you know you can recycle your garden waste by taking it to one of four drop-off points throughout the borough? The sites are open from 9am to 12 noon at the weekends and provide a free service to residents (you will need to bring proof of address and id). Flowers and plants, grass clippings, hedge trimmings, leaves, and twigs and branches up to four inches in diameter are accepted.'

Follow this link for your nearest drop off point -

http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/wa...QO,2YG8C,1

That's all very well if you have a car. If you don't you have to buy the bags at a tenner for ten of them and phone up to get the stuff picked up. The service works well.

I don't have a car. I still find it useful to know this service exists. I am a fan of disposing waste in the correct way and I don't mind making a little effort to do so. I don't expect door to door service?!

I've seen plenty of people carrying their waste to the drop-off points, or taking it in wheelbarrows!

Both services - the drop-off points and the green bag collection scheme - work well. I use both depending on circumstances.

What would be even better would be to have brown bins, like they have in other boroughs, to collect garden and food waste for municipal compost-making.

Hi Medley and rshdunlop, where in SE23 can I buy the green bags? If you have any info, that would be greatly appreciated.

Agree on brown garden waste bins - used to have one in Barnet (though confusingly, it was green there) and they are very useful if you have enough space on your property. Victorian terraces with lots of conversion flats are less likely to have enough space though.

You can order the green bags online from Lewisham's website - it's in the Do It Online section. Once you are done you can arrange pick up from the same page. Alternatively you can get the bags from any Lewisham library.

They have brown bins in Southwark - my friends in East Dulwich have them. Similar housing stock to Forest Hill, I would have thought.

Green bags are *usually* available from libraries, but it would be best to phone and check if making a special journey. As a volunteer at Crofton Park I am well aware that we don't always have them in stock and neither do all the other branches.

This is true - I have often gone into FH library for two rolls and they have only been able to rustle up one, or none.

Ordering them online is easy and the bin men deliver them when they are out doing their pick ups of filled bags, so quite eco-friendly too!

Cheers, I'll order them online.