Tuesday May 5th 2026
East Lothian Council headquarters
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Liam Eunson
Residents can sign up for East Lothian Council’s 2026/2027 garden waste collection service from
Monday, 11 May.
Permit applications can be made using a myeastlothian account on the council’s website until the sign-up window closes at 4pm on Monday, 6 July. The garden waste permit charge will increase to £40 this year after remaining at £35 since its introduction in 2024.
Around 24,000 householders registered to use the scheme last year. Permit holders will benefit from fortnightly collections between 31 August 2026 and 27 August 2027.
Permit stickers will be delivered in August to every household which signs up showing the address and permit number for the registered property. Council collection crews will only empty brown bins with a valid sticker clearly displayed and they will check the sticker details match the address.
There is a strict limit of one brown bin per household.
Residents will also receive a calendar with the permit pack displaying the day and week of their bin collection.
Anyone who signed up online to last years’ service through a myeastlothian account will receive an email on or around 11 May reminding them to register again.
If a resident does not have a brown bin at their property, they can register for a permit first then contact wasteservices@eastlothian.gov.uk to order one and the council will arrange its delivery to their address.
Any householder who signed up during the extra permit window for the 2025/2026 service – which ran between 2 February and 16 February 2026 – will need to sign up for 2026/2027 in the new registration period.
Tom Reid, the council’s Head of Infrastructure, said:
“Kerbside collections of garden waste are not a statutory service and, with reducing budgets and increasing costs, it was necessary to raise the cost of these optional permits by £5 per year to continue their delivery.
“Households do not have to use this service, and residents can dispose of garden waste free of charge at our recycling centres.
“Garden waste including grass cuttings, leaves, bark, flowers, plants, hedge trimmings, weeds, twigs/small branches are all accepted materials in brown bins.
“For flats with shared areas, it is the residents’ responsibility to organise registration and payment for the service. This may be done by splitting the cost but only one person should order the permit and pay the full amount.”
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