We compost all our own kitchen and garden waste. A shredder is really useful for the larger stuff and stuff that doesn't rot very well on its own like ivy and leylandii prunings Anything that's too big for the shredder goes to make kindling for our open fire. So no need for brown bin or council collection.

I did hear thatLewisham were trialling a brown bin scheme in one area, but don't know the results yet.

I wonder if there would be scope for somewhere like One Tree Hill Allotments or Devonshire Road Nature Reserve to take in garden waste and compost it?