How to check your Croydon bin collection day, what goes in each bin, garden and bulky waste costs, and the rules that get bins left behind.

Croydon bin collection is not one schedule but four, running on two different rhythms, and the borough is strict about the bits most people get wrong. Your general rubbish is emptied once a fortnight. Your recycling and food waste go out every week. Garden waste is a paid extra. And a bin left in the wrong place, or with the lid propped open, gets driven past. This page sets out how to find your own collection days, exactly what belongs in each container, what the paid services cost, and what to do when a bin is missed, with every figure linked back to Croydon Council’s own pages.

How to find your collection day

Croydon Council runs a free address lookup. Enter your address and it returns the days for all of your bins, and lets you download a collection calendar.

  • Start at the council’s check your bin collection days page, which links through to the address lookup tool.
  • There is no single borough-wide calendar. Rounds differ street by street across Croydon, Purley, Coulsdon, Thornton Heath and New Addington, so the lookup is the only authoritative answer for your address.

Whatever day you are given, three rules apply to every bin. The council says to leave it out by 6am on your collection day, where it can be seen easily, and at the edge of your property where it meets the public highway.

The three rules that get bins left behind

This is the part worth reading twice, because none of it is discretionary. Croydon states it will not collect your bin if it:

  • is not left for collection at the edge of your property where it meets the public highway,
  • contains waste that should be in a different bin, or
  • is over-filled so the lid does not close.

That last one catches people out most often. A bag balanced on top of a closed lid, or a lid propped at an angle, is enough for the crew to leave the bin. Side waste left next to a bin is not collected either.

What goes in each bin in Croydon

General rubbish: grey lid, every two weeks

Your rubbish bin has a grey lid and is emptied once every two weeks. The council asks you to bag general rubbish in black sacks inside the bin. It is only for waste that cannot be recycled, and the house rubbish collections page is explicit about that.

The council lists as acceptable: waste that cannot be recycled, bagged cold ash from fires, food-soiled cardboard such as pizza and fast food boxes, plastic bags and film, polystyrene, and disposable nappies.

It lists as not acceptable: food waste, anything recyclable, textiles, batteries, electrical waste, garden waste, DIY waste, and hazardous items including asbestos, chemicals, gas bottles, paints or varnishes and tyres (what goes in your general rubbish bin).

Recycling: two containers, collected weekly

Houses and converted blocks of fewer than five flats get two recycling containers, either wheelie bins or boxes, and the split is by material, not by mixing everything together (houses and converted flats recycling).

What goes in each Croydon recycling container
ContainerWhat goes inWhat does not
Blue lidded bin or boxPaper, card, cardboard, flattened boxes, greeting cards, envelopes, junk mail with plastic wrapping removed, newspapers, magazines, telephone directories, shredded paper inside a paper bag, wrapping paper without foilCartons, till receipts, plastic-coated cardboard, card containing foil or metal, soiled food boxes, disposable masks and gloves
Grey or green lidded bin or boxCartons for juice, soup, sauce and milk; glass bottles and jars; drink cans, food and pet food tins, empty aerosols with lids off, cooking foil, foil trays, sweet tins, metal bottle tops and jar lids; plastic bottles, food trays, punnets, margarine and ice cream tubs, yoghurt potsAnything unrinsed, and items the council lists separately on its recycling page

Rinse containers, take lids off and squash plastic bottles flat before they go in. Two extras are collected alongside these bins rather than inside them: household batteries go out in an untied plastic bag placed next to your bins, and textiles and shoes go in a tied plastic bag placed on top of them.

Food waste: weekly, and it goes out with the recycling

Most houses and flats are given a small kitchen caddy and a larger lockable outdoor container. The council’s instruction is to put the outside container out every week with your recycling, before 6am, and to lock the lid so animals cannot get in (how we collect your food waste).

Any raw or cooked food can go in, including meat and fish, bones, fat and gristle, rice, pasta, beans and cereals, dairy including eggs and shells, tea bags and coffee grounds, fruit, vegetables, salad and peelings, and bread, cakes and pastries. What must not go in is plastic bags, food packaging, liquids, oil or liquid fat, nappies, pet litter and pet bedding (what you can put in your food waste bin). Line the kitchen caddy with a compostable liner, old newspaper or kitchen roll.

Croydon’s food waste is processed into a nutrient-rich agricultural fertiliser.

Garden waste costs £90.10 a year

Garden waste is not covered by your council tax. It is a separate paid subscription: £90.10 a year for one bin, collected every two weeks, using a wheelie bin with a brown lid (garden waste).

Three things are worth knowing before you sign up:

  • The service is only available to households that get their own individual bins. Properties on shared or communal rubbish bins, including most blocks of flats, cannot use it.
  • New subscribers are sent a brown-lidded wheelie bin. If you are re-subscribing, you keep the bin you already have. The bins remain the property of Croydon Council.
  • The subscription runs for a year and does not roll over by itself. You have to sign up again at the end of the year to keep collections running, through the pay for garden waste collections page.

If you would rather not pay, garden waste can be composted at home or taken to one of the borough’s recycling centres, which accept it free.

Bulky waste: £40.40 or £65.30

For furniture and other large items, the council runs a booked bulky waste collection service:

  • £40.40 for 1 to 3 items
  • £65.30 for 4 to 6 items

Only the items you booked and paid for are taken. The council is blunt about this: do not put extra items out alongside them, because they will not be collected. Upholstered items such as sofas, armchairs, beanbags and cushions contain persistent organic pollutants and have to be handled separately, so a mixed load can arrive as two visits within 10 working days of your booking date.

The borough’s three recycling centres

Anything too large, too hazardous or simply not worth paying to have collected can go to a reuse and recycling centre. Croydon has three, and their hours differ (our sites):

  • Factory Lane, West Croydon CR0 3RL. Monday to Saturday 7.30am to 4.30pm, Sunday 8.30am to 4pm. Access is from the south via Roman Way (A236).
  • Fishers Farm, North Downs Road, New Addington CR0 0LB. Monday to Friday 8am to 4pm, Saturday 9am to 2pm, Sunday 9am to 1pm.
  • Purley Oaks, Brighton Road, South Croydon CR8 2BG. Every day, 8am to 3.30pm. Queue on Brighton Road (A235) north of the site; there is no access from Purley.

The sites take household waste in black bags, garden waste, small electrical goods and small bulky items, alongside the usual recyclables. They do not take asbestos, chemicals, gas bottles, paints or varnishes, or tyres. Gates can close early when a site is busy, so do not arrive on the hour it shuts.

Bank holidays and missed bins

Croydon does not publish a standing borough-wide rule for bank holiday collections, the way some councils do with a blanket “everything moves back a day” notice. What it does publish is your own calendar: the collection day lookup lets you download and check the dates for your address, which is where any holiday change shows up. Check it in the week before a bank holiday rather than assuming your normal day holds. Recycling centres often stay open on bank holidays; over Easter the council confirmed all three sites ran at normal times.

If a collection is genuinely missed, and none of the three rules above applied to your bin, report it. The window is tight: the council asks you to report within 2 working days, starting at 10pm on the day of the collection, through report a rubbish collection problem. You do not need an account to do it.

The same council runs the borough’s car parks and controlled zones, covered in our guide to parking in Croydon, and the public register of Croydon planning applications.

Frequently asked questions

How do I check my bin collection day in Croydon?

Enter your address in the council’s collection day lookup, reached from its check your bin collection days page. It returns the days for every bin at your address and lets you download a calendar. Rounds vary street by street, so there is no single borough-wide day.

Is Croydon bin collection weekly or fortnightly?

Both. General rubbish, in the grey-lidded bin, is collected once every two weeks. Recycling and food waste are collected every week. Paid garden waste is collected every two weeks.

What time do bins need to go out in Croydon?

By 6am on your collection day, left where they can be seen easily, at the edge of your property where it meets the public highway.

How much is garden waste collection in Croydon?

£90.10 a year for one brown-lidded bin, collected every two weeks. It is only available to households with their own individual bins, not to properties on communal bins, and you have to re-subscribe each year.

How much does bulky waste collection cost in Croydon?

£40.40 for 1 to 3 items and £65.30 for 4 to 6 items, booked and paid for in advance. Only the booked items are taken, and upholstered furniture may be collected on a separate visit within 10 working days.

Why was my bin not emptied in Croydon?

The three published reasons are that the bin was not left at the edge of your property where it meets the public highway, that it contained waste belonging in a different bin, or that it was over-filled so the lid would not close. If none of those applied, report the missed collection within 2 working days, starting at 10pm on the collection day.

Sources

Charges and rules are those published by Croydon Council and checked on 4 August 2026. Prices are reviewed periodically, so confirm on the council’s own pages before you pay.