Herefordshire collects on every bank holiday but Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day. Garden waste now costs £60, bulky waste £35.45 per 3 items.
Herefordshire Council collects rubbish and recycling as normal on bank holidays. The only three days it does not collect are Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. That is stated on the council’s own bin collection day page, and it is the single most searched question about bins here.
Two things did change this year, and both cost money. Green garden waste sacks were scrapped in March and replaced by a £60 a year subscription. The weekly food waste collection that was promised for March 2026 has been pushed back to autumn 2027.
This page covers both, plus what goes in each bin, the bulky waste prices, the recycling centre opening hours and how long you have to report a missed collection. Last checked 30 August 2026.
The two bins, and what goes in each
Collections are fortnightly. Recycling and general rubbish come on alternate weeks, so you get one collection a week but never both on the same day.
- Black bin, or up to four black sacks. General rubbish, collected fortnightly. If your property cannot take a wheelie bin you buy your own black sacks and may present four.
- Green bin, or clear sacks plus a glass box. Recycling, collected fortnightly. Clear sacks are delivered to sack properties once a year, between August and September.
- Brown bin, 240 litres, or four 60 litre reusable sacks. Garden waste, fortnightly, subscription only.
Everything has to be out by 6.30am, at the boundary of your property nearest the public highway, with the lid shut. Anything left beside a bin is not taken. Those are the council’s own collection rules.
Four items joined the green bin on 1 April 2026: aluminium foil, foil trays, metal or foil lined tubes such as tomato puree, and plastic tubes such as toothpaste. The council asks you to scrunch small pieces of foil into a ball roughly the size of a tennis ball and to leave lids and caps on the tubes. The full list is on its what to recycle page.
The items people most often get wrong here all belong in the black bin, not the green one:
- cling film, kitchen roll, wet wipes and nappies
- polystyrene of any kind
- broken crockery, drinking glasses and Pyrex, wrapped first
- black plastic plant pots
Textiles and wood go in neither bin. The council asks you to take them to a recycling centre or a local reuse organisation instead.
Small electricals, batteries and vapes go on the lid, every week
This one is easy to miss because it does not follow the fortnightly cycle. Herefordshire collects small electrical items, batteries and vapes weekly, from on top of any bin.
- Put small electricals on the lid or beside your sacks, never inside the bin.
- Bag batteries in a small clear tied bag. The council asks for at least 10 at a time.
- Vapes go in a bag on the lid, maximum five per collection.
- Take the batteries out of the electrical items first.
Kettles, toasters, hairdryers, remote controls, mobile phones and power tools are all accepted. Light bulbs, televisions, laptops, monitors, microwaves, air fryers and anything with a glass or ceramic body are not. The rules are on the council’s WEEE, batteries and vapes page.
Finding your own day
There is no way round the postcode lookup. Use the council’s bin collection day checker, which also produces a printable calendar for the year and covers garden waste if you subscribe.
The council withdrew its text message reminder service and has not replaced it. Its own suggestion is to set a repeating reminder in your phone calendar. New housing developments may not appear in the lookup at all; those addresses are handled through the new build properties page.
Bank holidays and Christmas
Rubbish and recycling are collected on every bank holiday. Garden waste is too, with one exception: subscribers get a two week break over Christmas and New Year.
For Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day the council reschedules rather than skips, and publishes the replacement dates through the same postcode checker. It has not yet published the Christmas 2026 arrangements, so this page does not carry them. Check the checker from December.
One knock-on effect worth knowing if you have booked a bulky collection. Council offices close on bank holidays, so if your collection falls on the Tuesday after a bank holiday Monday, any change or cancellation has to reach them by midday on the Friday before.
Garden waste: £60 a year, and the sacks are gone
The old pay-per-sack scheme ended on Friday 27 March 2026. Since 30 March 2026 the only way to have garden waste collected is a subscription, priced at £60 per bin for the year to 31 March 2027. No refunds were given for unused sacks.
What £60 buys, from the council’s garden waste service page:
- a 240 litre brown bin, or four 60 litre reusable sacks if a bin will not fit
- fortnightly collections all year, apart from the two week Christmas break
- delivery within about 10 working days
The details that catch people out:
- Extra bins cost £60 each plus a £10 delivery fee. A property can hold up to five subscriptions.
- Refunds only run for 14 days from the date you subscribe. There is no refund after that for any reason.
- It renews automatically by direct debit, taken every February, with at least 14 days’ notice of any price change.
- You can share a bin with a neighbour, but it is only collected from the address on the subscription.
- Kitchen waste, animal bedding, soil, rubble and branches thicker than 10cm will stop the bin being emptied.
The compost made from it comes back to the county and is sold at the recycling centres for £3 a bag.
Food waste: promised for March 2026, now autumn 2027
Weekly food waste collections are a legal requirement under the government’s Simpler Recycling reforms. Herefordshire will not meet the original date.
Cabinet first approved the service in May 2025, subject to government funding. On 30 July 2026 Cabinet approved a revised start of September or October 2027, after reviewing implementation costs against the terms attached to that funding. The council’s own food waste page says collections were “initially expected to begin in March 2026”.
When it does start, each eligible household gets a 7 litre kitchen caddy, a 23 litre lockable outdoor caddy and one roll of 52 compostable liners. The council will not supply replacement liners after that. Collections will be weekly, from 6.30am, on the same day as your other bins. The council expects around 6,500 tonnes a year, treated by anaerobic digestion, and has committed that no digestate from Herefordshire food waste will be spread in the River Wye or River Lugg catchments.
Until then, food waste goes in the black bin or a home compost heap.
Bulky collections: £35.45 for three items
Booking a large item collection costs £35.45 per three items, with a maximum of 12 items per collection. Collections run between 7am and 5pm, usually booked a week ahead, two weeks when busy.
| Charge | Cost |
|---|---|
| Household collection, per three items | £35.45 |
| Fridge or freezer, per item (suspended) | £35.15 |
| Changing the item list | £5.23 |
| Cancelling a booking | £7.08 |
| Commercial collection, per three items | £59.09 |
| Commercial fridge or freezer, per item | £58.83 |
Fridges, freezers and cooling appliances cannot be collected or taken to a recycling centre at the moment. The council suspended both in August 2026, blaming a national shortage of treatment and processing capacity. It suggests selling or giving away working appliances, using a retailer take-back scheme when you buy a replacement, or storing the old one at home until the suspension lifts. When the service resumes, fridges are charged per item and capped at three per property per year.
Items must be at ground level, near your normal collection point, and outside any gate over four feet that cannot be seen through. Crews will not enter a house, garage, shed or upper floor flat. Built-in appliances count as fixtures and are refused.
Missed collections: you have two working days
Report a missed bin within two working days of the scheduled day. The council will not accept a report before the crew has visited, or where the crew has already logged a problem on its in-cab device.
Before reporting, the council asks you to check whether neighbours have been collected, whether it was the right week, and whether the bin has been tagged. Crews now carry CCTV and in-cab devices, and record a reason for every bin they leave.
The usual reasons a bin is left are on the council’s why wasn’t my bin collected page: out after 6.30am, contaminated recycling, an overfilled bin whose lid will not close, a damaged bin, or garden waste put out without a subscription.
Replacement bins are charged, with no concessions
Each property gets one black bin and one green bin. Beyond that the council charges for delivery, swaps, removals and replacing a bin you have damaged. It says the charge covers administration and delivery only, and there are no discounts for pensioners, students or benefit claimants. Bins damaged by the collection crew are replaced free.
You cannot buy your own bin elsewhere and you cannot collect one from the depot. A larger black bin is allowed only where six or more people live at the address, a child under three is in disposable nappies, or a medical condition produces a lot of non-hazardous waste. The council does not publish the charge amount on that page; ring 01432 260051 or use the online request form for the current price.
Seagull-proof sacks are available to sack properties in Hereford city centre, but the council recorded them as out of stock when this page was checked.
The six recycling centres, and the booking cap
All six sites are run by Severn Waste Services and all six need a booking, including if you arrive on a bicycle or on foot. Bookings are capped at four per fortnight per household or vehicle. Winter hours start on 1 October.
| Site | Open | Summer, 1 Apr to 30 Sep | Winter, 1 Oct to 31 Mar |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hereford, Chapel Road, Rotherwas | 7 days | 8am to 6pm | 8am to 4pm |
| Leominster, Bridge Street | 7 days | 8am to 6pm | 8am to 4pm |
| Bromyard, Linton Industrial Estate | Tue, Sat, Sun | 8am to 6pm | 8am to 4pm |
| Kington, Eardisley Road | Fri, Sat, Sun | 8am to 6pm | 8am to 4pm |
| Ledbury, Little Marcle Road | Wed, Sat, Sun | 8am to 6pm | 8am to 4pm |
| Ross-on-Wye, Station Approach | Mon, Thu, Sat, Sun | 8am to 6pm, 10am to 5pm on bank holidays | 8am to 4pm, 10am to 4pm on bank holidays |
Two site-specific points. Ross-on-Wye is the only one whose page publishes separate bank holiday hours. And pedestrians are only allowed at Kington, Ledbury and Ross-on-Wye; at Hereford, Leominster and Bromyard you need a vehicle or a bicycle.
A permit is needed for a commercial-type vehicle or any trailer longer than 1.3 metres. Sites take household waste from Herefordshire residents only, no trade waste.
Related pages
- Hereford roadworks and travel, including current closures and where to park
- Parking in Hereford
- Hereford council tax bands
- Hereford planning news
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