How to put your bins and sacks out for collection

This page explains how to present your general recycling and waste bins, sacks and food caddies for collection and helps to avoid common issues that lead to missed collections.

The right day and time

Put your bins or sacks out on the right day and in time for collection:

• recycling and rubbish is collected fortnightly on alternate weeks and food waste caddies are collected every week - check your collection dates (and sign up to email reminders)
• bins and sacks must be out before 7am on collection day and no sooner than 6pm the night before
• if you subscribe to the Garden waste Collection Scheme, put your garden waste bin or sacks out on the same day as green bins
• if you have sack collections
  • put lilac sacks out on the same day as green bins
  • put clear sacks on the same day as blue bins
  • we won't collect lilac sacks from properties that can accommodate wheelie bins

Remember to remove your empty bins from the pavement as soon as possible after collection - bins can obstruct others, especially wheelchair users and people with pushchairs.

What to do if your recycling and waste doesn't fit in your bins or sacks

Don't pack bins or sacks tightly. Contents should be loose enough to be inspected and emptied easily.

If you have bin collections:

• bin lids must be closed
• if your blue bin is full, put extra recycling in a clear sack or bag and place it on top or at the side of your blue bin
• if your green bin is full, you must not put out any extra rubbish as we won't collect it

If you have sack collections:

• use as many clear sacks for recycling as you need and put these out as usual
• we won't take any more than 3 lilac rubbish sacks per collection round

See What to do with extra rubbish.

Position your bins and sacks so our crews can access them

Unless you have assisted collections, our crews do not:

• walk onto your property
• move any obstacles
• open gates

You must put your bins and sacks at the edge of your property and they must be clearly visible to the collection crews.

If your road is particularly narrow you should place your bin as close as possible to the boundary of your property.

Correct bin presentation examples

This image shows a blue recycling bin and food caddy presented correctly. It is positioned outside the property and up close to the border.

Our collection crews can easily access both bins and they cause minimal obstruction to other users.

This image shows a blue recycling bin presented correctly. It is positioned at the entrance to a property.

Our collection crews can easily access this bin without walking onto the property.

This image shows a green rubbish bin presented correctly. It is positioned just to the side of the property entrance and there's no obstruction or gate to open.

Our collection crews can easily access this bin without walking onto the property.

Incorrect bin presentation example

This image shows a blue bin and green bin that are not presented correctly for collection. They are positioned at the far end of a property.

These bins will not be collected because our crews would need to walk onto the property to collect them. This issue will be logged on the live reporting system and we will not return until your next collection day.