Five bins on a three-week rota, garden waste £61 a year, bulky collections £61.20. Bank holidays push every round a day later, and a missed bin gives two days.
Bishop’s Stortford households have five containers and a three-week rota. Food waste goes out every week. The other three wheelie bins take turns: mixed recycling one week, cardboard and paper the next, non-recyclable waste the week after. Garden waste is a paid extra on its own fortnightly cycle.
That rota started on 4 August 2025 and it is the thing that catches people out. If you miss your purple bin, the next one is three weeks away, not two.
The five containers, and how often each is emptied
| Container | Size | Emptied | What goes in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brown food caddy | 23 litre outdoor, 5 litre kitchen | Every week | Cooked meat, bones, plate scrapings, peelings, bread, tea bags |
| Black-lidded bin | 240 litre | Every three weeks | Plastic, glass, tins, cans, cartons, plastic bags and wrapping |
| Blue-lidded bin | 240 litre | Every three weeks | Magazines, corrugated card, cardboard packaging, newspapers, paper |
| Purple-lidded bin | 180 litre | Every three weeks | Polystyrene, cigarette ends, cat and dog waste, tissues, nappies, wipes |
| Brown-lidded bin | 240 litre | Every two weeks | Garden waste only, and only if you have paid for a subscription |
Source: East Herts District Council, Bin Collection Service and What goes in my bins.
Two rules are easy to get wrong. Recycling must be loose, not bagged, or it gets treated as contamination and left. And plastic bags and wrapping now go in the black-lidded bin, not the purple one, which reverses what most people were taught before 2025.
Flats and households sharing communal bins are not on the three-week rota. They stay on a two-week cycle.
How to find your day
East Herts runs an address lookup and an app. There is no printed calendar for the town.
- Check your address on the council’s collection day lookup
- Or install the Your East Herts app, which sends a reminder telling you which bin is due
Put containers at the front boundary of your property, lids closed. The council’s own pages disagree on the deadline: the bin collection service page and the collection day page both say 6.30am, while the refuse bins page says 6am. Treat 6am as the safe deadline. Crews will not step onto your property, and they do not return for a bin that was out late.
Bank holidays: everything moves a day later
This is the question the council answers worst. There is no policy page. The lookup tool is updated, but only close to the date.
The pattern in the council’s own published tables is consistent, though. Both times East Herts has set out a bank holiday week in writing, every collection moved one day later and Friday’s round moved to the Saturday.
| Normal day | Revised day |
|---|---|
| Monday 26 May | Tuesday 27 May |
| Tuesday 27 May | Wednesday 28 May |
| Wednesday 28 May | Thursday 29 May |
| Thursday 29 May | Friday 30 May |
| Friday 30 May | Saturday 31 May |
Source: East Herts District Council, May Bank Holiday Bin Collections. Note that this page is still live but the day names on it match the 2025 calendar, not 2026. It has not been refreshed.
As of 26 August 2026 the council had published nothing at all about the August bank holiday on Monday 31 August. Neither the waste pages nor the news feed carried a notice. If your round falls in that week, check the lookup tool rather than assuming.
Christmas: the longest gap in the year
Over Christmas the shift runs for more than three weeks, not one. The council’s published table for the last festive period moved every collection from Thursday 25 December through to Saturday 17 January, each one landing a day or more later than usual.
Garden waste stops completely. The subscription terms state plainly that the annual fee covers collections from 1 April to 31 March “with the exception of one collection which will not occur over the Christmas and New Year holiday period”. Last winter that meant no garden waste between 25 December and 9 January.
Real Christmas trees are collected with garden waste when the service restarts, but only if you subscribe. Remove all decorations, keep the trunk girth under 10cm and cut anything over six feet down.
Source: East Herts District Council, Council services - winter changes.
Garden waste: £61 a year
The brown-lidded bin is a subscription. It is not included in your council tax.
- £61 per bin for collections from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027
- You can subscribe at any point in the year, but there is no pro-rata refund, so a January sign-up costs the same as an April one
- Extra bins are £61 a year each for the collection, plus £40 to supply and deliver the bin. Three bins is the maximum per property
- Allow up to two weeks for the subscription to be set up and a bin delivered
- The subscription sticker must be on the bin and visible, or the crew will pass it
Source: East Herts District Council, Garden Waste Subscription Service.
Bulky collections: £61.20, and no fridges
Book through an East Herts MyAccount, or by calling 01279 655261 and choosing “Refuse and Recycling”. Slots are released daily and you can book up to five weeks ahead.
| What | Cost |
|---|---|
| Up to 3 soft-furnished items | £61.20 |
| Up to 3 non-soft-furnished items | £61.20 |
| Each additional item of the same type | £17.00, up to 6 items per collection |
| Cancelling a booking | £15.00 |
Three details cost people money here.
- Soft and non-soft items cannot be mixed in one booking. A sofa and a cooker are two separate bookings at £61.20 each, because of Environment Agency rules on upholstered waste
- Fridges and freezers are not being collected at all at the moment. The council says it hopes to restore the service and points people to the recycling centre or a retailer take-back scheme in the meantime
- The refund wording is inconsistent. The charges table lists a £15.00 cancellation fee, while the cancellations section says a full refund minus a £14.40 admin fee if you cancel more than 48 hours ahead. Inside 48 hours there is no refund either way
How items are counted matters too. A table plus four chairs counts as two items, but a bed base, headboard and mattress counts as three.
Source: East Herts District Council, Bulky Rubbish Collection.
Missed collection: two days, and not before 4pm
The reporting window is tight and the council rejects reports that come in too early.
- Report within two days of the missed collection
- Do not report before 4pm on the first day after the collection was missed, or the report may be rejected
- Allow up to 72 hours for the bin to be emptied once reported
- For garden waste the window is shorter: 48 hours
You should not report it at all if a sticker was left on the bin. That means the crew saw it and refused it, usually for the wrong contents or excess weight. Remove the offending items and the bin is emptied on the next scheduled day.
Source: East Herts District Council, Report a missed bin and Common Collection Problems. Note that the common problems page still tells residents their bin will be emptied “in 2 weeks time”, which was true before the three-week rota started.
Bigger bins, replacements and assisted collections
The standard purple refuse bin is now 180 litres, down from the old 240. You can apply for the 240-litre version, but only if you meet one of three criteria:
- six or more permanent residents
- two or more children in disposable nappies under 36 months
- a resident producing excess non-infectious healthcare waste
Everyone except medical applicants has to keep a five-week waste diary first, and entitlement is reviewed annually.
On replacements, lid and wheel repairs are always free. A broken recycling, food or garden bin is replaced free. A purple-lidded refuse bin that cannot be repaired costs £40 to replace.
An assisted collection is available if nobody in the household can move the bins to the boundary. Crews then collect from your usual storage place.
The recycling centre: closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays
Bishop’s Stortford’s tip is on Woodside Industrial Estate, off Dunmow Road (A1250), CM23 5RG.
- Open 8.30am to 4pm on Monday and Thursday to Sunday
- Closed all day Tuesday and Wednesday
- Open on every bank holiday except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day
You now need a free ePass to get in. Hertfordshire County Council registers it against your number plate and reads it with ANPR cameras, so there is nothing to print or display. A household can hold up to three. If you turn up without one, staff will sign you up on the spot provided you have proof of address with you.
The site’s own page is behind on this. It still frames the ePass as something you need only for a van, trailer or an out-of-county visit, while the county’s ePass page says every Hertfordshire resident needs one. Apply either way. Bring proof of address as well: a driving licence, council tax bill, Hertfordshire bus pass or utility bill.
DIY waste is capped. The county accepts two 50-litre rubble bags or one bulky item per visit, and you cannot bring more for another four weeks. The ePass system now tracks this across sites, so visiting a different tip does not reset it.
Sources: Hertfordshire County Council, Bishops Stortford recycling centre and DIY waste restrictions.
Also on this site
- How the three-week rota changed recycling rates in East Herts
- Bishop’s Stortford roadworks and travel
- Parking in Bishop’s Stortford
- Bishop’s Stortford council tax bands
All figures on this page were checked against East Herts District Council and Hertfordshire County Council pages on 26 August 2026. Charges change in April, so confirm anything you are about to pay for.
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