Collections over Christmas and New Year
This Christmas and New Year, your food waste, recycling, rubbish and garden waste collection days may be different. Please check if yours will be affected below.
Normal collection day | When we'll collect |
Monday 21 December | Collections as normal |
Tuesday 22 December | |
Wednesday 23 December | |
Thursday 24 December | |
Friday 25 December | Monday 28 December |
Monday 28 December | Tuesday 29 December |
Tuesday 29 December | Wednesday 30 December |
Wednesday 30 December | Thursday 31 December |
Thursday 31 December | Friday 1 January |
Friday 1 January | Saturday 2 January |
Monday 4 January | Back to normal |
You can check and download your collection calendar on the My Area page.
Visit My area
Clinical waste collections
If you have a clinical waste collection and it’s due on Christmas Day or Boxing Day, we’ll contact you directly to rearrange it.
Food waste
Things like turkey bones, vegetable peelings and leftovers can go in your food waste caddy. They’ll be recycled into fertiliser and energy to help power homes.
Looking for inspiration to use up your Christmas leftovers? Visit Love Food Hate Waste for recipe ideas and tips to help reduce food waste.
Food waste can really build up over Christmas, so try to plan ahead and only buy what you’ll use. It’s a great way to cut down on waste and save money too.
You don't need to order an extra food waste caddy this Christmas. If your caddy fills up, put any extra food waste in a liner, then in a plastic container like an ice cream tub. Leave the lid off the tub and pop it on top of your caddy on collection day.
Find out more about food waste collections
Recycling
You can recycle things like Christmas cards, brown envelopes and wrapping paper in your orange recycling bag. Make sure you remove decorations like ribbon, glitter, tinsel and any tape and pop them in your rubbish bin as they can’t be recycled.
What to do with extra recycling
If you’ve got extra recycling around the festive period that you can’t fit in your recycling bags and box, please follow the advice below.
Extra cardboard: flatten, tie it in a bundle and leave out with the rest of your recycling
Extra plastics, cartons, cans and tins: pop them in a carrier bag and leave with the rest of your recycling
Extra paper: put it in a carrier bag and leave out with the rest of your recycling
You can also take extra recycling to your local recycling centre. You need to book a slot to visit some recycling centres.
If you regularly have more recycling than you can fit in your recycling bags and boxes (not just over Christmas), you can order more using the link below.
Order recycling bags, boxes and food waste caddies
Don’t put batteries out for collection
You should never put batteries in your rubbish or recycling containers. They have started fires when they’re crushed in our collection vehicles.
Instead, you should:
Reduce: where possible, choose rechargeable devices that don’t need batteries
Recharge: consider using rechargeable batteries instead of single use ones
Recycle: collect batteries in a container at home and, once full, take to an HWRC or supermarket battery recycling point
Find a battery recycling point near you
Christmas trees
We only collect real Christmas trees from households that subscribe to our garden waste collection service.
Not subscribed? Sign up for collections by 31 December and we can save you the hassle of getting rid of your tree.
Sign up for garden waste collections
If you're subscribed:
we’ll collect one Christmas tree per household
please place your tree next to your garden waste bin or bag on your collection day
if your tree is over 6ft, please cut it in two
your tree must be suitable for one crew member to safely lift and carry it
We'll collect Christmas trees from subscribers between 11 to 22 January on your usual garden waste collection day.
Some local charities collect trees, please check your usual community networks.
You can also take Christmas trees to our recycling centres.
Household Waste and Recycling Centres (HWRCs)
Our recycling centres will be open from 9am to 4pm throughout the festive period except for Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. Please remember you need to book to visit some recycling centres.
Waste from businesses including holiday lets
It’s against the law for businesses, including holiday lets, to use household recycling and rubbish services to dispose of their commercial waste. If you run a holiday let, you must pay a licensed waste carrier to collect and dispose of your commercial waste.
The law applies to people who rent all or part of their home out for some or all of the year as holiday accommodation.
Please visit our Commercial Waste Services page for more information.