COUNCIL bosses are encouraging residents to get their garden waste annual subscription and take advantage of the early bird discount.

Blackburn and Darwen residents can have all their garden waste collected for an annual subscription fee of £25 per bin or £20 if they sign up before February 1.

As well as helping residents dispose of garden rubbish, the scheme is also beneficial to the environment as all waste collected sent for composting and turned into a soil improver instead of being disposed of in a landfill site.

Cllr Jim Smith, Executive Member for Environment, said: "The scheme had over 14,500 households signed-up in 2017 which shows that people find the service valuable.

"Residents like it because it makes gardening easier and saves them having to load the car up with heavy bags of wet garden waste and make trips to the household waste centre to dispose of it.

“I would like to encourage any residents who are thinking about subscribing but have not yet committed, to act quickly and save 20%.”

Those who subscribe to the scheme will receive a bin identification sticker for each garden waste bin.

Bins will be collected every two weeks from March to the end of November.

For more information or to sign up visit blackburn.gov.uk/Pages/Brown-bins-for-green-waste.aspx