Residents who have been waiting more than a year to join a green waste collection scheme are now being given the chance to sign up.

About 600 green-fingered residents, who wanted their garden waste collected, had to put their names on a waiting list because Hart District Council did not have room in its lorry for their cuttings and clippings. 

But a reorganisation of the rounds has meant more people can benefit from the scheme.

Cllr Stephen Parker, portfolio holder for the environment, said: “Officers have reviewed the rounds, and have reorganised them, so that we can accommodate the some 600 prospective customers on our waiting list.”

For £30 a year, the council will supply residents with a re-usable sack, which is emptied once a fortnight. Additional sacks for the same address cost £15 a year each.

Subscribers will also be able to have their Christmas tree collected after the festive season.

But until last month, no new members had been able to sign up to the scheme because it was oversubscribed.

A spokesman from Friends of the Earth criticised the council for taking so long to expand the scheme.

Rick Kimber, spokesman for the group’s Blackwater Valley branch, said: “The slow movement of these types of scheme is a concern to us.

“The fact that it has taken so long to do this means that a few hundred tons of green waste have gone to the landfill."

He added: “If you look at the typical waste bin, it consists of approximately 30% green waste.

“People are still not recycling their green waste and it’s ending up at the landfill. That is something that needs to be reduced.”

But Mr Kimber acknowledged that the green waste scheme was not ideal because it meant using lorries to pick up the waste.

He urged residents to consider home composting as a more environmentally friendly option.

Hampshire County Council subsidises home compost bins, and, according to www.recycle-now.com, Hart residents can purchase a 35in by 29in bin for £17.

Mr Kimber said even people without gardens could use a compost bin.

“There are special wormery composters,” he said.

“It’s a thing that you have in your kitchen and it contains special worms, not your standard earthworms, and they like tea-bags and things.

“They make compost which you can then put in your hanging baskets.”

Cllr Parker said letters had  gone out to prospective customers inviting them to subscribe to the newly available green waste scheme.

Letters have also gone to those people whose collection day will change.

Cllr Parker added: “Officers are continuing to examine the service in order to improve its cost effectiveness so that we can run it to serve all those residents who wish to use it without net cost to the council.”

Earlier this year, Cllr Parker criticised the previous Liberal Democrat and Community Campaign Hart coalition for failing to make sure demand did not outstrip supply.