Watford September clean-up campaign

Watford Borough Council and Veolia UK have pledged their support for this year’s Great British September Clean, run by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy.  

The campaign, which was postponed in early spring due to Covid-19, will now run from 11-27 September 2020. It will encourage the great British public to take part in small, socially distanced clean-ups to remove litter from streets, parks and beaches across the country.  

The Great British Spring Clean, run by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, brings together individuals, community organisations, businesses and councils to show they love where they live and in 2019 more than half a million #LitterHeroes collected more than 900,000 bags of rubbish. 

Last year’s campaign also saw over 200 Watford residents, school children, councillors and businesses getting together to clean up 12 different areas of Watford. In total 72 bags of litter were collected for disposal and 20 bags of plastic bottles and drinks cans were diverted for recycling.

Elected Mayor of Watford, Peter Taylor said: “We are very proud to support this fantastic initiative from Keep Britain Tidy. The Great British September Clean is the perfect opportunity for residents to get active outdoors and help clear up any rubbish that you see. Don’t forget that you can borrow the litter-pickers free of charge throughout the year, not just for this event, so we can continue to keep Watford clean. I’d like to thank everyone in our town who is supporting this great initiative.”​

Darren Harding, Senior Contract Manager for Veolia Watford said: “It’s a pleasure to work alongside Keep Britain Tidy to deliver The Great British September Clean in Watford. We hope that the event will encourage residents to reduce, reuse and recycle their waste, ensuring the right thing ends up in the right bin.”

Due to restrictions on social gatherings, people will not be able to host or join public events as in previous years. You can either organise a private clean-up with up to five other family and friends, or pledge to do your own individual clean-up, even if it’s just 15 minutes. 

As part of our commitment to making Watford a greener, cleaner Borough, we will loan litter pickers (along with disposable gloves) to groups and supply free rubbish bags. We do ask groups to sanitise the litter pick handles when they are returned. Groups taking part can also liaise with Veolia to arrange for the litter they have gathered to be collected and disposed of. If you think the Council and Veolia could support your event, please email enquiries.watford@veolia.co.uk.

Changes to Watford’s waste and recycling collection service starts from Monday 7 September

The changes agreed for the waste and recycling service include:

• The introduction of a weekly collection of food waste; households will now have received a new 23 litre outdoor brown bin to make recycling food waste easy
• Fortnightly collection of the black bin for non-recyclable waste
• The introduction of a yearly sign up service for fortnightly collections of garden waste (using existing green bins).  This will cost £45, or £40 if paid by direct debit. Those who are entitled to a concession will only pay £35.

Keeping the weekly collection of the blue-lidded recycling bin that means the majority of people’s waste will still be collected each week.