Every kerbside collection day in Colchester changed on 1 June 2026. Food is weekly, everything else fortnightly, and the wheeled bin rollout runs to March 2027.
Colchester rebuilt its whole collection service on 1 June 2026. Collection days moved, the materials collected on each day changed, and wheeled bins began replacing bags. If you have not looked at your calendar since May, the day you think is your bin day is probably wrong.
The council’s own wording is blunt about it: “From 1 June 2026 every kerbside property may be collected on different days and/or week to current collections. Even where the collection day does not change there will be changes to which materials are collected.”
There is only one reliable answer to “when is my bin day”, and it is your own postcode: check your recycling calendar.
The rollout is still running, and most of the city is waiting
This is the part the council buries in a frequently asked questions page rather than putting on the front of the service.
New calendars started on 1 June for everybody. The bins themselves are arriving in waves:
- early rollout from 1 June 2026
- main rollout from September 2026
- the whole city finished by March 2027
Until your bins turn up, you carry on with your existing bins and bags on your new collection day. The council tells residents to “use your existing bins and bags on your collection day until your new bins arrive”.
You can look up which service your address is on, and whether it has been assessed yet, through the council’s Check my service tool. It returns one of four answers: not yet assessed, standard service, non-standard, or the flats service.
The four containers
| Container | What goes in | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Black wheeled bin, 180 litre | Non-recyclable rubbish | Fortnightly |
| Black bin with a green lid, 240 litre | Paper, card, plastics, tins and cans, all mixed together and loose | Fortnightly |
| Green box | Glass bottles and jars only, rinsed | Fortnightly |
| Kerbside caddy | Food waste | Weekly |
| Brown wheeled bin | Garden waste, subscribers only | Fortnightly |
The cycle alternates. In week one you put out food and the black bin. In week two you put out food, the mixed recycling bin, the glass box and, if you pay for it, the brown bin. Recycling, glass and garden waste all land on the same day.
The big change inside the bin is that recycling is now co-mingled. Paper, card, plastics, tins and cans all go in together, loose, with no bags. The council says the sorting still happens, just at a materials recycling facility rather than at your gate. Glass is the one exception and stays in its own box.
Soft plastics and cartons are now accepted. That covers carrier bags, bread bags, crisp packets, cling film, plastic film from ready meals, and Tetra Paks. Polystyrene, hard plastic toys and blister packs are still refused. The full lists are on the council’s what goes in your bins pages.
Three bags, and you buy them yourself
If your property is on bags rather than bins, the limit is three 60 litre black bags per fortnight, unless you hold a rubbish limit exemption. The council states plainly that it “will not collect more than three black bags”.
Two rules catch people out:
- The council does not supply black sacks. It confirmed in the rollout FAQ that its policy has not changed and it will not start supplying them for households left on bags.
- Nothing may be left beside a wheeled bin. If you have a black wheeled bin, every bag must go inside it with the lid shut. Bags placed next to it are not collected. The only exception is flattened cardboard, which can go next to the recycling bin.
Properties judged unsuitable for wheeled bins keep using black sacks for rubbish and move to clear sacks for mixed recycling, with glass in a rigid box. The council says decisions are made by officers against fixed criteria “with no appeal process”, though it will re-check an assessment if the criteria were applied wrongly.
Bank holidays
Colchester does not publish a standing bank holiday policy, which makes this harder to answer than it should be.
What the council has actually said this year is limited to Easter. On 27 March 2026 it published No changes for bin collections this Easter, confirming that all collections including Good Friday would run as normal.
As of 24 August 2026 the council had published nothing about the summer bank holiday on Monday 31 August. There is no notice on its news pages and no bank holiday section on the recycling pages. Check your own calendar rather than assuming either way.
Christmas is the one period that reliably moves, and Colchester moves collections forward, not back. Last year, according to the arrangements Marks Tey Parish Council republished, collections due on 23, 24 and 25 December were brought forward by a day, while Boxing Day collections went back to Monday 29 December. Garden waste was suspended from 29 December 2025 to 9 January 2026. On the three days that were brought forward, the missed bin service did not collect paper, card, plastics, glass, tins or cans at all.
Christmas 2026 dates have not been published yet.
Garden waste: £65 a year, and the price changes on 1 September
Garden waste is a paid subscription. You get up to four brown bins if you want them, and nothing in the brown bin is collected without a subscription.
| When you pay | New subscriber | Renewal |
|---|---|---|
| 1 January to 31 August 2026 | £34.99 joining fee plus £65.00 a year | £65.00 |
| 1 September to 30 November 2026 | £34.99 joining fee plus £32.50 a year | £32.50 |
Every subscription ends on 31 March 2027 whichever window you buy in. So the half-price service fee from September is not a bargain so much as a half-year rate: you are buying seven months instead of fourteen.
The joining fee of £34.99 is a one-off per bin and does not repeat on renewal. Prices are from the council’s renew or join page.
One thing the brown bin will not take is fallen fruit from your own trees. That goes in the food caddy instead, which does accept “wind fallen fruit from trees”.
Bulky items, and the free Saturday alternative
Special collections run on Mondays. The council’s booking page gives these charges:
- £77 for up to six bulky items
- £100 for six to twelve bulky items
- £19 for most electrical items, including televisions, computer monitors and microwaves
- £39 for fridges and freezers
Glass and mirrors have to be removed from furniture before collection, and tins of paint are not taken at all.
Before you book, check the free Saturday household drop-off service. The council parks a vehicle in a different neighbourhood on selected Saturdays through spring and summer and takes small loads of bulky household items for nothing. Wivenhoe, Greenstead, Berechurch and Rowhedge are among the locations in the 2026 programme. It will not take recyclables, upholstered furniture, fridges, freezers, other electrical appliances, hazardous waste, business waste or garden waste, and it is for small loads only.
Clothes, shoes and household textiles have their own free route. Essex Textiles collects in Colchester every Friday, but since 3 April 2026 it has been bookable only, so a bag left out unbooked will not be taken. Carpets, duvets, pillows and quilts are refused.
Missed collections: report after 5.30pm, within two days
Two rules from the council’s missed bins service:
- a missed bin can only be reported after 5.30pm on your collection day
- it must be reported within two days of the missed collection
The council is currently carrying a notice on that page saying it is “experiencing a high number of missed collection reports”, which is what you would expect part-way through a service change of this size.
It also asks people not to report a collection as missed if the materials were presented wrongly. The example it gives is specific: tins and cans are not collected unless they are in the recycling wheeled bin or a clear bag together with plastics, paper and card. A box of tins on its own is a refusal, not a missed collection.
The recycling centre: Shrub End Road, and you have to book
Colchester’s tip is run by Essex County Council, not the city council.
- Address: 221 Shrub End Road, Colchester, CO3 4RN
- Summer hours: 9am to 5pm every day, 1 March to 15 October
- Winter hours: 9am to 4pm every day, 16 October to the end of February
- Closed: Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, and from 1pm on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve
A booking is required for car visits, and it is free, but you need a fresh one each time. Blue Badge holders, pedestrians and cyclists do not need to book. Vans, pick-ups and vehicles towing a large trailer have to book in advance under a separate route.
You must live in the Essex County Council area to use the site, and staff can ask for proof of residency such as a council tax bill or driving licence. Details are on the Love Essex site page.
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