Rubbish and recycling alternate fortnightly, food waste weekly, glass every four weeks. Garden waste costs £72.50 a year plus a £31 bin charge, bulky items £49.
The New Forest spent a year replacing its bin service and finished in May. Black and clear sacks are gone. Every household in the district is now on wheelie bins, a weekly food waste caddy and a four-weekly glass box.
That means a lot of the bin advice still circulating locally is out of date. Below is the service as New Forest District Council describes it today, with the costs, the deadlines and the bits the council splits across five separate pages. Every figure here was checked against the council’s own pages on 1 September 2026.
Which bins you have, and how often they are emptied
| Container | Size | What it takes | How often |
|---|---|---|---|
| Green-lid wheelie bin | 240 litres | Recycling | Every 2 weeks |
| Black-lid wheelie bin | 180 litres | Rubbish | Every 2 weeks, alternating with recycling |
| Brown outdoor caddy | 23 litres | Food waste | Every week |
| Grey indoor caddy | 5 litres | Food waste, kitchen storage only | Not collected |
| Black box | Standard | Glass bottles and jars | Every 4 weeks |
| Black bin, brown lid | 240 litres | Garden waste, paid subscription | Every 2 weeks |
Rubbish and recycling never come the same week. The council sets out the bin and caddy sizes in full, and confirms on its rubbish page that the two alternate.
Not everyone got a wheelie bin. Flats, properties on communal bins and homes the council assessed as unsuitable still use sacks for rubbish and recycling. Those households did get both food waste caddies.
Find your own day through the council’s postcode lookup. If you are on communal bins, the council admits the checker may not show your updated schedule, and asks you to email it instead.
What to do on collection day
- Put everything out by 6am, and preferably no earlier than 6pm the night before
- Collections run from 6am and can happen any time up to 2pm
- Present the bin at the edge of your property, handle facing the road
- The lid must close fully, or the bin will not be emptied
- Extra waste left beside or on top of a bin is not collected
- Lock the outdoor food caddy by pushing the handle upright
One thing catches people out. Wheelie bins and food caddies are collected by different crews in different vehicles, so they can arrive hours apart on the same day. An empty bin and a full caddy at lunchtime is normal, not a missed collection.
There is also a fortnightly limit on how much rubbish the council will take. Households that need more can apply for a different capacity or extra bin.
Bank holidays and Christmas
This is where the council is thinnest, so here is exactly what it does and does not say.
For glass, the council states plainly that collections still take place over the Easter and summer bank holidays. Its own 2026/27 glass calendar backs that up: the four-week colour cycle runs unbroken through Monday 4 May, Monday 25 May and Monday 31 August 2026, with no dates shifted.
For rubbish, recycling and food waste, the council publishes no bank holiday statement at all. We could not find one anywhere on newforest.gov.uk. Rather than guess, check the postcode lookup in the week before a bank holiday.
Christmas is different and the council says so. Changes to glass dates over Christmas and New Year are published on the collection day lookup at the beginning of December, printed on sacks, and put out through the local press. The glass calendar carries the same warning.
Garden waste stops completely over Christmas. There are no garden waste collections from Monday 21 December 2026 through to Friday 1 January 2027. Collections resume on your next scheduled day.
Garden waste: what it costs
Garden waste is a subscription. The current price, per bin:
- £72.50 for 12 months of fortnightly collections
- £31 one-off supply charge per bin, covering administration and delivery
So a first bin costs £103.50 in year one and £72.50 a year after that. You can have up to five bins per household, each charged the same way. Sign up online, by phone on 023 8028 5391, or at an information office.
Two details worth knowing. Your 12-month subscription starts when the first collection happens, not when you pay. And delivery normally takes up to 10 working days, though the council currently warns of delays.
Bulky waste
Booking is by phone only, on 023 8028 5000, paying by card at the time. Cash bookings have to be made in person at an information office.
- £49 for the first item
- £13 for each extra item, up to eight
- Free for one collection of up to three items per financial year if you receive certain benefits
Collections are split by item type. Upholstered seating goes on Thursdays and Fridays, because of the rules on disposing of it. Everything else is collected Monday to Wednesday. If you book a mixed load, it may come on two different days.
The council will not collect fencing, sheds, garage doors, external doors, windows, trampolines, pianos, electric beds, American-style double fridge freezers, range cookers, or any glass including mirrors and glass-topped tables. Carpet must be cut to two metres or less; two rolls count as one item and underlay is charged separately.
Items must be out at the front of the property by 6am. If they are not, there is no refund. Changes and refunds are only accepted within 48 hours of booking, and a missed bulky collection must be reported within 24 hours. All of this is on the bulky waste page.
Missed collections: you have until midday the next working day
The window is short and the council enforces it. Missed collections must be reported before midday on the next working day. Reports made later may not be collected.
Before reporting, the council asks you to check three things:
- Do not report before midday on the day itself, because crews may still be out
- If the whole street has been missed, leave the bin out and do not report it; crews usually return the following day
- Check for an advice card explaining why the bin was left
Once a report is accepted, the council aims to return within three working days. Report through the missed collection page.
What goes in the glass box
Bottles and jars of any colour and size, including coffee jars, jam jars, sauce jars and broken glass. Screw metal tops back onto empty jars; loose lids, corks and plastic tops are not accepted.
Not accepted: drinking glasses, window pane glass, glass kitchenware, crockery and light bulbs. If the box has the wrong items in it, the crew leaves it and posts a card.
Your glass round has a colour and a day, such as purple Thursday, and it does not change from year to year. The council also runs a free Remind Me text service that messages you the day before, and it sends the reminder earlier in winter so people are not putting glass out in the dark.
The tip
The New Forest’s household waste and recycling centres belong to Hampshire County Council and are run by Veolia. You must book an appointment before you go. Any New Forest resident can use any Hampshire site.
| Site | Address | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Efford | Milford Road, Pennington, Lymington SO41 8EZ | Phone 01590 671874. Closed 1pm to 1.30pm |
| Marchwood | Normandy Way, Marchwood SO40 4UD | Has steps. Closed 1pm to 1.30pm |
| Somerley | Verwood Road, Ringwood Forest, Somerley BH24 3QE | Has steps. No lunchtime closure listed |
Opening hours are the same across all three:
- 9am to 6pm, 1 April to 30 September
- 9am to 5pm, 1 March to 31 March
- 9am to 4pm, 1 October to 28 February
All three are open seven days a week and close only on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. A commercial vehicle or a large trailer needs a permit. Hampshire currently warns that fridges and freezers cannot be guaranteed acceptance because of a national recycling capacity problem, and that you may be sent to another site.
What must not go in the rubbish bin
Batteries and electrical items, including vapes with batteries still in them, because they start fires in collection vehicles. Also clinical waste and syringes, garden waste, hazardous waste such as asbestos, and bulky household items.
The council runs a free healthcare waste collection for clinical waste and sharps. Syringes should never go in a sack or bin, however well wrapped.
Did the change work?
The council says yes, and puts numbers to it. The rollout began in June 2025 and finished with phase 3, covering Totton, Lyndhurst, Marchwood, Hythe, Fawley and the surrounding area, from the week of Monday 11 May 2026. That final phase alone brought in 36,000 more households.
More than four million collections had taken place under the new system by May 2026, according to an open letter from Cllr Geoffrey Blunden, the cabinet member for environment. The council is now collecting an average of 78 tonnes of food waste a week and sending it to anaerobic digestion instead of incineration.
That matters more here than it sounds. The council’s own 2018 waste analysis found 40% of the average New Forest black bag was food waste, and the district recycled 34% in 2020/21, ranking 174th of 216 English collection authorities. Across Hampshire, 61% of household waste is incinerated.
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