Bath's tip shuts Tuesdays, Midsomer Norton's Thursdays, and Keynsham needs no booking. Garden waste is £75 a year, bulky collections start at £41.97.
Bath and North East Somerset Council runs five separate containers, three recycling centres with three different opening patterns, and a garden waste service whose price changes depending on the month you sign up. Your collection day itself comes from the council’s collection day finder, which wants a postcode. Everything the finder does not tell you is on this page, checked against the council’s own pages in August 2026.
What goes out, and how often
- Black wheelie bin or re-usable rubbish bag (RRB), every two weeks. Nappies, tissues and wipes, black plastic, polystyrene, crisp packets and carrier bags all belong here. Broken glass goes in too, but only wrapped securely.
- Green recycling box, weekly. Most households have two 55-litre boxes: box one for plastic and metal (cans, empty aerosols, clean foil, bottles, tubs and trays), box two for glass bottles and jars with the labels and lids left on.
- Blue recycling bag, weekly. This is where all your paper now goes, along with cardboard, magazines, egg boxes and cartons. The council moved paper out of the green box, so if you are still splitting it by habit you are doing it the old way. Flatten card and cut it to no more than 45cm square. Tissues, kitchen towel and wrapping paper are not recycling and go in the rubbish.
- Black food waste bin (23 litres), weekly, emptied from the 5-litre kitchen caddy. Any plastic carrier bag, compostable liner or newspaper works as a liner, but not black bags or bags for life.
- Green garden waste bin or paper sack, every two weeks, and only if you pay.
Batteries and vapes are the exception to all of this. They start fires in the collection lorries, so the council wants them in a tied bag placed on top of the green box, never loose inside it and never in the rubbish. Clean textiles, small electricals, printer cartridges and sealed engine oil go the same way, each in its own tied carrier bag.
Put it out by 6am, not 7am
The council contradicts itself here. The rubbish page and the food waste page both say 6am. The collection day finder says 7am. Both say nothing goes out earlier than 8pm the night before. Work to 6am and the disagreement cannot cost you a collection.
Extra rubbish left beside a full bin will not be taken, and the council says it can fine people who do not present waste properly.
Bank holidays and Christmas
B&NES does not publish a bank holiday collections page at all. There is no policy statement, no annual list of moved dates, and no equivalent of the Christmas leaflet for the spring and summer holidays. The only live source is the council’s waste disruptions page, which was empty when this page was written, and the collection day finder itself. If a bank holiday falls on your day, check the finder that week rather than assuming.
The recycling centres are the one part of the service where the council is explicit: all three open on bank holidays, 8am to 3.45pm.
Christmas is handled properly, by a leaflet posted to every household. Going by the most recent one, published in November 2025, the pattern is:
- changes affect collections normally scheduled between 25 December and 10 January
- garden waste is paused for six weeks, from early December to mid-January
- the recycling centres close on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day
- the Keynsham Reuse Shop closes for roughly a fortnight
- only plain brown wrapping paper can go in the blue bag; anything with glitter or a metallic finish cannot
Those are last winter’s arrangements. The 2026 dates had not been published when this page was written, so treat the shape as reliable and the dates as not yet confirmed.
Garden waste: £75, and it matters when you sign up
Garden waste is a subscription. The year runs July to July, and every current subscription expires on 11 July 2027. A bin costs £75 for the year from 13 July 2026, and you pay less the later you join because you get fewer months.
| When you order | Subscription | Bin delivery | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before 12 July 2026 | £82.61 | £11.35 | £93.96 |
| July, August, September 2026 | £75.00 | £11.35 | £86.35 |
| October, November, December 2026 | £55.00 | £11.35 | £66.35 |
| January, February, March 2027 | £40.00 | £11.35 | £51.35 |
| May, June, July 2027 | £25.00 | £11.35 | £36.35 |
Two things to watch. The delivery charge is quoted twice on the same council page, as £11.75 in the text and £11.35 in the table; the table is the one that adds up to the totals shown. And there is no April 2027 row, so if you want to start that month you will need to ring Council Connect on 01225 394041.
You only pay the delivery charge in your first year, or if you need to replace a lost or stolen bin. Bins come in 240 litre and 140 litre sizes and take up to 30 days to arrive. There are no refunds if you cancel part way through, and none if the council suspends collections for severe weather.
If you only clear the garden occasionally, council-branded paper sacks cost £5.09 each and are sold at shops around the district, including Gardenalia on London Road in Bath. Ordinary bags and boxes will not be emptied.
Bulky waste: £41.97 for up to three items
The large item collection service takes a maximum of ten items, priced in three brackets. These charges apply from 1 April 2026.
| Items | Cost | Discounted rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | £41.97 | £20.98 |
| 4 to 6 | £73.38 | £36.69 |
| 7 to 10 | £91.52 | £45.76 |
The discounted rate is for households on Council Tax Benefit, Housing Benefit or Personal Independence Payment, and for students in off-campus accommodation with a council tax exemption.
Counting matters more than it looks. A bed frame and a mattress are two items, and a dining table with chairs, or a three-piece suite, counts as three. Two black sacks of small items such as toasters and kettles count as one.
Fridges and freezers cannot be collected or taken to any of the three recycling centres at the moment. The council blames a UK-wide shortage of processing capacity and points people at retailer take-back schemes instead. There is no restoration date. Carpets, sofabeds that have not been dismantled, rubble, storage heaters, boilers and pianos are on the permanent no list.
Upholstered seating, including office chairs, needs any rips or tears taped over before collection, because of the flame-retardant chemicals in the foam.
Missed collection: you have 24 hours
The reporting window is tight and specific: from 5pm on your collection day to 5pm the day after. Miss it and the council will not return.
You also cannot report a miss until the crew has logged your street as complete, because the round order changes for operational reasons and they may simply still be coming.
The council commits to coming back in three cases:
- the whole road was missed
- it had agreed to help you put the bins out and did not
- your recycling or garden waste was missed, and it is operationally possible to return for it
Business waste has a different deadline, 5.30pm the next working day.
The three recycling centres, and which days they shut
This is where local knowledge saves a wasted journey. Each site closes on a different day, and only one of the three lets you turn up unannounced.
| Site | Address | Closed | Booking |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bath | Midland Road, BA1 3AT | Tuesdays | Required |
| Keynsham | Worlds End Lane, BS31 1TW | Open 7 days | Not needed |
| Midsomer Norton | Old Welton, Wheelers Hill, BA3 2AA | Thursdays | Required |
Opening hours are the same across all three: 8am to 4.15pm on weekdays, 9am to 3.45pm on Saturdays, 9am to 1pm on Sundays and 8am to 3.45pm on bank holidays. Last entry is 15 minutes before closing and the council says you will be turned away if you arrive after it. All three shut on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.
Keynsham is reached via Worlds End Lane, but the council advises approaching through the Broadmead Lane roundabout and Ashmead Road rather than following a satnav.
You need to be a B&NES resident and bring proof: a driving licence, Discovery card, council tax bill or recent utility bill. Boat dwellers moored in the district can use a current boat licence.
Permits are free but compulsory for vans, pick-ups including Land Rover Defenders, crew cabs, campervans, minibuses and people carriers without rear seats, and any single-axle trailer between 1.8m and 2.4m long. Turn up in one without a permit and you will not get in. Full rules are on the permits and regulations page.
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