Gardener flooded with waste calls

A gardener and landscaper has been inundated with calls after setting up a garden waste pick-up service to help Edinburgh residents who have no way of disposing of their garden waste.

Colin Spence, owner of CS Gardening and Landscaping, set up the service last week after Edinburgh City Council cancelled their brown bin pick-up service due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The council also shut their recycling centres, leaving Edinburgh residents with no way of disposing of garden waste other than composting. Mr Spence said the demand for his services had skyrocketed after he published a post on Facebook offering to pick up the rubbish for £4 per bin. The 48-year-old then disposes it at Forth Resource Management.

He said: “It is absolutely bizarre and the phone just goes off 24/7 at the moment. I have lost count of the number of bins I’ve picked up, it must be in the thousands. I must get 80 calls a day and a couple of hundred voicemails and texts from people, it’s so much I can’t keep up.

“I’m doing it just to keep the business ticking over the best I can. I have got gardening maintenance to do, but it doesn’t put food on the table or pay the bills.

“Normally I have a decent income, but the restricted hours of places and no skip companies hiring out means I can’t do much landscaping.”

Mr Spence launched the service after the council stopped their own pay-for brown bin service, a decision that council leader Adam Mcvey said was made to ensure the safety of council staff.

Cllr Mcvey said: “Be assured that as soon as we can we will resume garden collections and reopen the community recycling centres. But for now, and we don’t yet know how long for, we’re asking you to help in our effort to keep residents and our waste staff safe.”