Garden waste dumping

Garden waste, or green waste dumping is the act of discarding or depositing garden waste somewhere it does not belong.

Garden waste is the accumulated plant matter from gardening activities which involve cutting or removing vegetation, i.e. cutting the lawn, weed removal, hedge trimming or pruning consisting of lawn clippings. leaf matter, wood and soil.^[1]

The composition and volume of garden waste can vary from season to season and location to location. A study in Aarhus, Denmark, found that on average, garden waste generation per person ranged between 122 kg to 155 kg per year.^[1]

Garden waste may be used to create compost or mulch, which can be used as a soil conditioner, adding valuable nutrients and building humus. The creation of compost requires a balance between, nitrogen, carbon, moisture and oxygen. Without the ideal balance, plant matter may take a long time to break down, drawing nitrogen from other sources, reducing nitrogen availability to existing vegetation which requires it for growth.^[2]

The risk of dumping garden waste is that it may contain seeds and plant parts that may grow (propagules), as well as increase fire fuel loads, disrupt visual amenity, accrue economic costs associated with the removal of waste as well as costs associated with the mitigation of associated impacts such as weed control, forest fire.