Terms of Service

1. Agreement to These Terms

By using bincollectionguide.org/ (the "Site"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you don't agree, please don't use the Site. These Terms form a legally binding agreement between you and the publisher of bincollectionguide.org/ ("we", "us", "our") under the laws of England and Wales.

You should read these Terms alongside our Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Disclaimer, which together govern your use of the Site.

2. About This Site

bincollectionguide.org/ is an independent UK-focused editorial website that publishes guides to bin collection schedules, recycling rules, and waste services across local authorities in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. We are not a UK local authority, not a government department, and not a waste operator. The Site is provided for general information only.

3. Eligibility

The Site is intended for use by adults. If you are under 13, please do not use the Site. If you are between 13 and 18, you may use the Site for general information but should not enter into any commitments through it without a parent or guardian’s involvement.

4. Permitted Use

You may use the Site for personal, non-commercial purposes — looking up your bin day, checking your council’s recycling rules, finding contact details for your local council’s waste team, and similar uses. You may share links to our pages on social media or in personal correspondence.

News organisations, researchers, and journalists may quote short extracts in accordance with the fair-dealing exceptions in UK copyright law, with attribution to bincollectionguide.org/ and a link back to the source page.

5. Prohibited Use

You must not:

• Use the Site in a way that breaches any applicable UK or international law
• Scrape, harvest, or systematically extract content from the Site for resale, republication, or to power a competing service
• Use automated tools to send a high volume of requests to the Site that would interfere with normal operation
• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Site, our systems, or any account or data on the Site
• Introduce malware, viruses, trojans, worms, or any other malicious code to the Site
• Use the Site to send unsolicited communications (spam) or to harvest email addresses
• Misrepresent your identity or affiliation when contacting us through the Site
• Reproduce, distribute, or display content from the Site in a way that suggests endorsement by any council, government department, or other body
• Use the Site to commit fraud, harass others, or facilitate illegal activity

6. Intellectual Property

All content on the Site — text, layout, design, graphics, logos, organisation, and code — is owned by us, licensed to us, or used with permission, and is protected by UK copyright, design, and trade mark law including the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

You may view and print pages for personal reference. You may not copy substantial parts of the Site, reproduce our editorial structure, or republish content commercially without our prior written permission.

Council names, logos, and trade marks belong to the relevant local authority. Our use of council names is for the practical purpose of identifying the area each page covers and does not imply sponsorship, endorsement, or affiliation. The full position is set out in our Disclaimer.

7. User-Submitted Content

If you submit content to us — for example, a correction report, a feedback message, or a comment — you confirm that:

• You own the content or have the right to share it with us
• The content does not breach anyone else’s copyright, trade mark, or other rights
• The content is not defamatory, threatening, harassing, obscene, or unlawful
• You give us a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use the content for the purpose of operating and improving the Site, including publishing it where relevant (for example, an anonymised correction note)

We do not guarantee that submitted content will be acted on, and we may remove or refuse to publish any submission at our discretion.

8. Third-Party Links and Services

The Site links extensively to UK local authorities, GOV.UK, and other authoritative sources. We have no control over those sites and cannot guarantee their availability, accuracy, security, or accessibility. A link from us to a third-party site is not an endorsement of that site beyond the specific information we are pointing to.

Some pages may include embedded content from third-party services (for example, a Google Map showing the location of a recycling centre). Use of those embeds is also governed by the terms of the third-party service.

9. Advertising

The Site is funded by display advertising. Advertisements are served by recognised ad networks and labelled as advertising where required. We do not allow advertisers to dictate editorial content. Where the Site includes an affiliate or commercial link, that link is disclosed and is separate from editorial content. Full details are in our Editorial Policy.

10. Changes to the Site or These Terms

We may add to, change, or remove parts of the Site at any time. We may also update these Terms from time to time, for example to reflect changes in our services or in UK law. The “Last reviewed” date at the top of this page shows when the current version was published.

If we make a substantive change that materially affects your rights, we will publish a notice on the homepage for at least 30 days before the change takes effect. Continuing to use the Site after a change has taken effect means you accept the updated Terms.

11. Disclaimer of Warranties

To the fullest extent permitted by the laws of England and Wales:

• The Site is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis
• We make no warranties or representations that the Site will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or free from viruses or other harmful components
• We make no warranties about the accuracy, completeness, currency, reliability, or suitability of any information on the Site for any particular purpose

The full operational disclaimer — particularly around schedule changes, charges, council variation, and information not being legal or professional advice — is set out on the Disclaimer page.

12. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by the laws of England and Wales, and subject to your statutory rights as a consumer (see Section 13):

• We are not liable for indirect, special, consequential, or economic loss — including loss of profit, loss of business, loss of contract, loss of goodwill, or loss of data — arising from your use of, or inability to use, the Site
• Our total liability to you for any matter relating to the Site is limited to one hundred pounds sterling (£100), except where a higher amount is required by law
• Examples of losses we are not liable for include: missed bin collections, contaminated recycling rejected by your council, fixed penalty notices, wasted journeys to a recycling centre, and any payment made to a council, contractor, or third party in reliance on information on the Site

13. Your Statutory Rights as a Consumer

If you are a consumer (broadly, an individual using the Site for purposes outside any trade, business, craft, or profession) you have statutory rights under UK consumer law that cannot be taken away by these Terms. In particular, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 gives consumers rights in relation to digital content and digital services, and these Terms do not exclude or restrict those rights.

If you are dissatisfied and we cannot resolve a complaint between us, you may also have the right to use an alternative dispute resolution scheme. For most consumer disputes in the UK, Citizens Advice (citizensadvice.org.uk) is the standard first point of contact for advice and signposting.

14. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from any claims, losses, costs, or expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the Site, or your infringement of any third-party right through your use of the Site. This clause does not apply to consumers using the Site for personal, non-commercial purposes except where the loss arises directly from a deliberate or reckless breach of these Terms.

15. Suspension and Termination

We may suspend or restrict your access to the Site without notice if:

• You breach these Terms in a material way
• Your use of the Site causes a security risk or operational problem
• We are required to do so by law, regulator action, or court order
• We discontinue all or part of the Site

You may stop using the Site at any time. Sections of these Terms that by their nature should survive (intellectual property, limitation of liability, governing law, contact) will continue to apply.

16. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them are governed by the laws of England and Wales.

The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction to settle any dispute arising out of these Terms, except that:

• Consumers resident in Scotland may bring proceedings in the courts of Scotland
• Consumers resident in Northern Ireland may bring proceedings in the courts of Northern Ireland
• Nothing in this section deprives a consumer of the protection of mandatory provisions of the law of the country in which they are habitually resident

17. General Provisions

Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Disclaimer linked from this page, set out the entire agreement between you and us in relation to the Site.

Severability. If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the rest of the Terms continue in full force.

No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of our right to enforce it later.

Assignment. You may not transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms without our written consent. We may transfer ours to a successor in business as part of a corporate restructuring.

Third parties. A person who is not a party to these Terms has no rights under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 to enforce any term of these Terms.

Force majeure. We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control, including acts of God, war, civil unrest, government action, industrial action, internet outage, and pandemic.

18. Contact

For any question about these Terms, email info@bincollectionguide.org with the subject line “Terms enquiry.” For privacy questions, see our Privacy Policy; for accessibility questions, see our Accessibility Statement.