Every bin runs a day late in the week of Monday 31 August. Recycling is now four-weekly, garden waste costs £53, and bulky pickups are paused to 7 September.
West Suffolk Council changed almost everything about bin collections on 1 June 2026. There are now five containers instead of three, and the two recycling bins are emptied only once every four weeks.
Two things are worth knowing right now.
Every collection runs a day late in the week beginning Monday 31 August. Normal collections resume from Monday 7 September. The council announced this on 3 August and it applies to every bin, so a Friday round moves to Saturday 5 September.
Bulky waste collections are paused. The council has stopped taking bookings while it beds in the new service, and says on its bulky items page that you can only book dates from Monday 7 September onwards.
The five containers and how often they come
| Container | What goes in | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Grey caddy (food) | All food waste, including bones, plate scrapings, tea bags and pet food | Weekly |
| Black bin | Non-recyclable waste only: nappies, bagged animal waste, soiled fast food containers | Every two weeks |
| Blue bin | Glass bottles and jars, cans, foil, cartons, plastic bottles, pots, tubs, trays, carrier bags, bubble wrap | Every four weeks |
| Green-lidded bin | Paper and card only, clean and dry: letters, cardboard, newspapers, magazines, books, egg boxes | Every four weeks |
| Brown bin (garden) | Grass, leaves, weeds, prunings, hedge clippings, branches under 6cm thick | Every two weeks, paid subscription |
The two additions in June were the green-lidded bin for paper and card, and the food caddies. Government policy under Simpler Recycling requires councils to collect food separately and to keep paper and card apart from other recycling.
The blue bin gained items at the same time. Glass bottles and jars, plastic film, metal and Tetra Pak cartons can now all go in it, which they could not before. Everything must be clean, dry, loose and bigger than 4cm, according to the council’s own waste guide.
Two things that catch people out:
- Windfall fruit does not go in the food caddy. It goes in the brown garden bin. The council states this on both pages.
- Only the large outdoor caddy needs to be put out. The small kitchen one stays indoors.
Put bins out by 6am. Your collection day may have moved in June, because the council redrew the rounds to fit the new schedule.
Find your day
The council’s My West Suffolk tool takes a postcode and then an address, and returns your collection days. There is no printed calendar online. The one that came in the information pack in May covers six months only.
Bank holidays
West Suffolk shifts everything by a day for the whole bank holiday week, then returns to normal the following Monday. It does not publish this as a standing policy on any service page. It announces each one as a press release, so the pattern is easier to see from the releases than from the bins section:
- Early May 2026: changes ran Monday 4 May to Saturday 9 May
- Spring 2026: changes ran Monday 25 May to Saturday 30 May
- August 2026: all bins one day late in the week beginning Monday 31 August, normal from Monday 7 September
The May dates come from an April release, the August ones from the 3 August release. The council has not yet published its Christmas 2026 arrangements.
Garden waste costs £53
The brown bin is a subscription. The year runs from 1 June 2026 to 31 May 2027 and costs £53 for each bin, per the council’s subscription page. You can hold up to four subscriptions on one property.
Points that matter if you are joining now:
- Subscribe at least two full working days before your collection is due.
- New bins are delivered within four weeks, so a mid-year signup is not instant.
- Your brown bin day can be a different day from your black and blue bins.
- Direct debit renews automatically each year until cancelled.
Missed collections: you have two working days
Before you report anything, check the council’s delayed collections page. It lists, street by street and bin by bin, the rounds the crews did not finish. If your road is on it, the council already knows and you should leave the bin out.
If your road is not listed, you have two working days from your collection day to report it. Wait until 5pm on the day itself first.
Contamination is treated differently, and this is the part worth reading twice. If the wrong things are in a recycling bin, the crew leaves a sticker and does not empty it. The council does not come back. You either wait for the next scheduled collection, which may be four weeks away, or take the waste to a recycling centre yourself.
The council publishes what it finds. Between April and June 2026 the most common contaminants were bagged items (717 blue bins), polystyrene (305) and dirty items (237). In the green-lidded paper bins it was hard plastic (206), glass (167) and bagged items (162).
Bulky waste: £60, and paused until September
The charge is £60 for one to three items and £21 for each additional item. Collections are postcode-based, with each ward given its own day.
If you receive Council Tax reduction, and that means the reduction scheme rather than a single person or student discount, you get 50 per cent off one collection a year, covering one to three items.
The practical conditions:
- Items must be at your normal bin collection point by 6am, collected from 6.30am.
- No time slots are given.
- Payment is in advance and is non-refundable.
- Nothing can be added to a booking after it is made.
- Garden items are not collected.
- Ripped upholstered seating must be taped up, or cushions bagged, because of the persistent organic pollutants rules that have applied since December 2024.
Bury St Edmunds Recycling Centre
Fornham Road, Bury St Edmunds, IP31 1SJ, east off the A134 at the junction with Barton Hill. It is run by Suffolk County Council, not West Suffolk.
You need to book a time slot. That applies to every visit bringing household waste. The exception is the charity re-use shop on the site, which you can visit without an appointment.
Opening hours are the same across all 11 Suffolk centres:
- April to September: 9am to 5pm
- October to March: 9am to 4pm
- Closed every Wednesday, though the re-use shop stays open
- Open Sundays and bank holidays
- Thursdays until 7pm from May to August
- Closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day
Household waste is free. Hardcore, rubble, soil, ceramic bathroom items and plasterboard are not classed as household waste even when they come from your own home, and the free allowance is four 25-litre bags per visit and four visits in any four-week period. Beyond that you pay, from £2.06 per 25 litres up to £51.52 for a full transit van. Suffolk checks the limit against your vehicle registration, and payment is by card only. The full list is on the county’s what you can bring and charges page.
Plasterboard is only accepted at five sites, and Bury St Edmunds is one of them.
Bring banks near you
There are glass, clothing and paper banks across the district, plus 18 newer banks for small electricals, anything smaller than a microwave. In Bury St Edmunds those are at Moreton Hall Community Centre car park (Symonds Road, IP32 7EE), Southgate Community Centre car park (Heron Road, IP33 2QA), Ram Meadow car park (Cotton Lane, IP33 1XP), Parkway surface car park (IP33 3BA) and Vinery Road car park (IP33 2JP). Items with batteries inside must not go in them. Full list on the council’s recycling page.
Also on this site: parking in Bury St Edmunds, Bury St Edmunds council tax bands and roadworks and travel.
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