Changes to waste and recycling collection days to help maintain efficient and reliable service

From Christmas Day (25 Dec), all households will see their collection days move by two working days, due to a change in the way Swindon Borough Council operates its services.

As a result of the change, the Council will be able to avoid a 40,000 backlog of collections accruing from households whose current collection day falls on either Christmas Day or Boxing Day. By moving collection days permanently, council crews will not have to catch up on accrued collections caused by the Christmas bank holidays at any point in 2025.

It will also help crews focus on the huge task of collecting the larger volumes of waste and recycling generated over the Christmas period.

Last year, crews had to collect a backlog on top of their daily rounds.

Following the routine pause of services on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, collections will resume on Friday, 27 December, beginning with those that otherwise would have occurred on Christmas Day. Those residents who are due collections on Boxing Day (26 December) will see their waste collected on Monday, 30 December.

This means that from Wednesday, 25 December 2024, all households will need to put out their waste and recycling out for collection two working days further on from the day they currently do.

For residents whose waste and recycling collections currently take place on different days, these will both move by two working days.

During December, all affected households with a wheelie bin across the Borough will receive a bin hanger which provides information on the upcoming changes. In addition, postcards will be sent to households who receive blue bag or assisted collections.

Residents can already see the dates of their future waste and recycling collections on the Council’s website, by entering their postcode into the online search. This look up tool will be automatically updated to reflect the upcoming changes. The website also has information to help answer any residents’ queries on the changes.

Residents should put black wheelie bins, food waste caddies, black and/or orange boxes and blue recycling bags out for collections from 6am onwards on their new collection day.

The Council will deploy four additional recycling vehicles over the busy Christmas period until the end of January, providing extra capacity to support the fleet of permanent recycling lorries. An extra three new lorries were added to the fleet in August to increase capacity.

Councillor Chris Watts, Swindon Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways and the Environment, said: “Making this permanent change to waste and recycling collection days will ultimately help our crews to provide an efficient and reliable service to residents.

“It allows a reset, meaning our crews avoid having to catch-up with 40,000 household collections that accrue from Christmas Day and Boxing Day being national bank holidays.

“In December, we’ll be delivering information to every Swindon home on the changes and residents can also check their new waste and recycling collection day on our website.

“We learnt a lot from the challenges last year and will be using four additional recycling vehicles over the busy Christmas period to provide extra capacity. That’s on top of the three brand-new recycling lorries added to the fleet back in August.

“Christmas is always a busy time of year for our hard-working crews, so I’d ask residents to bear with us if any issues do occur.”

Residents can search ‘look up’ on the Council’s website and enter their postcode to check their new collection days, or search www.swindon.gov.uk/lookup