Independent Cambridge household bin micro-guide: exact clicks, deadlines, food-caddy status, missed bins and waste routes.
Get the right date, right bin and next click
Cambridge bin collection dates must be checked against your exact address. Black rubbish, blue recycling and green garden collections normally alternate, while separate weekly food-waste collection is being added property by property during 2026.
This page is organised by the problem you need to solve. It shows what to open, what to type, what button to press, what result should appear and what to do when the normal route fails.
If you only need the basic answer
Open the Greater Cambridge bin finder, enter your postcode, press Search and select your exact property. Save the date together with the collection stream.
Independent guide: BinCollectionGuide.org is not Cambridge City Council, South Cambridgeshire District Council, Greater Cambridge Shared Waste or Cambridgeshire County Council.
Current 2026 checks: weekly food waste is still being introduced in phases. Your calendar or council start notice should confirm when it begins at your property.
Extra green bins: the published 2026/27 permit is £52, but Greater Cambridge currently says purchases of additional permits and bins are suspended until 1 October 2026.
Small electricals: local small-electrical recycling-point collections are currently suspended because of a processing-plant fire. Milton or Thriplow Household Recycling Centres are the current fallback.
How to check the exact Cambridge collection date
Date
Date
Date
Date/status
Open the official collection finder
Open Greater Cambridge Shared Waste’s Find your household bin collection day page.
Enter the full postcode
Type the postcode for the property and select Search.
Select the exact address
Choose the correct house, flat or named property from the returned address list.
Read every collection column shown
Check the dates displayed for Black Bin, Blue Bin, Green Bin and Food Waste where that service is active.
Prepare the correct container by 6am
Put the correct bin, sack or outdoor food caddy at the agreed collection point by 6am on collection day.
Save it like this: “Blue + Food — Tuesday 1 September — out Monday night.” This is much safer than saving only “bins Tuesday”.
If the checker does not give the result you expected
Check the postcode spelling and spacing. Do not use a neighbour’s postcode as a substitute.
New builds and unusual properties can need a direct service check. Do not select another house to estimate the collection.
Check the food-waste rollout route below before putting a silver outdoor caddy out.
What each column on the Cambridge calendar means
General rubbish
Use for household rubbish that cannot use recycling, food, garden, specialist recycling or reuse routes.
Mixed dry recycling
Clean and dry paper/card, cans, tins, glass bottles/jars and accepted plastic packaging.
Garden waste
Normally fortnightly March–November and monthly December–February.
Weekly once active
Use the outdoor food caddy every week after your property has joined the 2026 service.
Important 2026 transition: before weekly food collection starts at your property, accepted food waste can still follow the current green-bin route. Once your weekly caddy service starts, Greater Cambridge asks you to move food into the separate food caddy instead.
How to check whether your food-caddy collection has started
Open Greater Cambridge Shared Waste
Find the In My Area postcode search on the main website or food-waste page.
Enter your postcode
Use the address where the food caddy will actually be collected.
Check your property collection calendar
If the service has started, Food Waste should appear in the collection information for the property.
Use the council start letter as confirmation
Greater Cambridge writes to households before their start date with service instructions.
Which food-waste setup should you use?
House with individual bins
Use the small indoor caddy in the kitchen, then transfer food into the larger lockable outdoor caddy. Only the outdoor caddy is collected.
Flat with shared bins
Use the indoor caddy, then empty it into the shared outdoor food-waste bin in or near the communal bin store.
Assisted collection customer
Existing assisted customers are automatically given assisted food-waste collection when the service starts at their property.
Food caddy: quick yes/no check
Raw or cooked meat and fish, including bones, are accepted.
These can go into the weekly food-waste service.
Free-flowing liquids and oils should not be placed in the caddy.
Remove all packaging first, including packaging labelled compostable.
Your house food caddy was missed
Do not expect a separate return visit for an individual outdoor food caddy. Greater Cambridge asks residents to report the miss for monitoring, but says it will not normally return specifically for the caddy.
Still have space?
Keep using the outdoor caddy and present it again the following week.
Caddy becomes full?
Temporarily place excess food waste in your black bin.
Alternative green-bin route
Remove food from plastic liners first, then place it loose or in paper in the green bin as the temporary missed-caddy fallback described by Greater Cambridge.
Flat shared food bin missed? Use the flats-specific missed-bin form. Greater Cambridge says it will return for genuinely missed shared food-waste bins at flats.
Outdoor caddy lost or damaged
Make sure your weekly service has already started
The replacement outdoor-caddy option applies once the property is active.
Open “Request a bin”
Use the bin/caddy request form rather than the missed-bin form.
Request the outdoor food caddy
Greater Cambridge says replacement lost or damaged outdoor caddies are free and aims to arrange delivery within 10 days.
Indoor caddy lost? The council does not normally replace the small kitchen caddy. Any suitable lidded kitchen container can be used before transferring food to the outdoor caddy.
Cambridge bin not emptied? Check this before reporting
Confirm it using the property calendar.
Late presentation does not qualify for a normal return collection.
Follow the card, fix the problem and present the bin on the next scheduled date.
A crew-recorded problem can prevent a missed-bin return.
The crew must have clear access to the agreed collection point.
House or flat? Pick the correct form
Individual house / wheelie bin
Use Report a Missed Bin. The first screen asks you to choose Start a new form or continue a previously saved form.
Large shared bins at flats
Use Waste collections at flats – Report an issue. The form explicitly says house requests will not be processed through the flats route.
Option 1: Start a new form
Option 2: Continue a saved form using your saved reference number
Confirm the collection was due
Use the property calendar to confirm that exact bin or collection stream was scheduled.
Check the presentation rules
Confirm the container was out by 6am, accessible, not too heavy or overfilled, correctly used and that no advice card was left.
Wait until 3:30pm
Do not submit the missed-bin form before 3:30pm on collection day.
Choose the correct form
Use the household form for an individual property or the flats form for large shared communal bins, then select Start a new form.
Report by 3:30pm the next weekday
Submit the eligible missed collection by the deadline and leave the bin out for the return collection.
What happens next? Greater Cambridge says it will return for eligible missed bins within three working days after the scheduled collection, and sooner where resources allow.
Common items that cause the wrong-bin mistake
Residual rubbish
- Nappies and sanitary waste
- Cat litter and pet faeces
- Photos
- Non-recyclable mixed packaging
- Bagged vacuum dust
Mixed recycling
- Clean paper/card
- Glass bottles and jars
- Tins and cans
- Plastic bottles, pots and trays
- Clean plastic bags and film
- Cartons and clean foil
Garden waste
- Grass and leaves
- Flowers and weeds
- Untreated wood
- Straw and sawdust
- Garden prunings
- Windfall fruit
When active
- Plate scrapings
- Meat and fish
- Bones
- Dairy and eggs
- Fruit and vegetables
- Bread, rice and pasta
Greater Cambridge accepts many clean polythene plastic bags and films in the blue bin.
These flexible packages are not accepted in the normal blue-bin route.
Tear off the clean sections for blue recycling. Small quantities of wet or greasy cardboard can use the current green-bin composting route.
Put it in an old envelope or paper bag before placing it in the blue bin so it does not blow away during emptying.
It still belongs in the black bin, not the green composting stream.
What to do when the blue bin is full or a bin is missing
One-off extra recycling
One transparent sack
Leave one transparent sack of accepted recycling beside your blue bin.
One cardboard bundle
Tape or tie one cardboard bundle small enough that it could fit in the bin if space were available.
No glass in the sack
For crew safety, glass must stay inside the blue bin.
More than one sack or bundle is not the normal allowance. During disrupted collections crews can also prioritise emptying the main bin over taking extra recycling.
Regularly filling the blue bin?
Use the permitted transparent sack and cardboard-bundle route.
Request another blue bin if you have space to store it off the street.
An additional smaller black bin is only available in exceptional circumstances. Contact the service rather than ordering one automatically.
Do you need to pay for Cambridge garden waste?
The standard household service includes emptying one green garden-waste bin.
Annual charge for each additional green bin to be emptied.
1 October – 30 September
The price does not reduce because you join later in the permit year.
Sales paused
Additional green-bin permits and bin purchases are currently unavailable until 1 October 2026.
What to do now: if you already have a permitted extra bin, follow its normal collection schedule. If you need to buy a new permit, return to the official page on or after 1 October and recheck the live price/status first.
Battery and small-electrical disposal: use different routes
Small household batteries at a house
Use a small tied plastic bag
Suitable small portable batteries include AA, AAA, C, D and button batteries.
Put the bag on top of a wheelie-bin lid
Use the top of the black, blue or green wheelie bin. Never place batteries inside the bin.
If the crew leaves the battery bag
The vehicle’s battery container can occasionally be full. Store the bag safely and try the following week.
Flat with large shared bins? Do not leave battery bags on communal bins. Take batteries to a retailer collection point or Household Recycling Centre.
Small electrical appliance
Current service suspension: small-electrical recycling-point collections are temporarily suspended following a fire at the processing plant. Store the item safely or take it to Milton or Thriplow Household Recycling Centre until the service resumes.
Large lithium batteries: e-bike, e-scooter, power-tool, vehicle and similar larger batteries need a specialist retailer/recycling-centre route. Do not put them in the small household battery bag.
How to book a Cambridge sofa, furniture or appliance collection
Example: a three-seater sofa can count as three items. Count the official booking units, not simply the number of objects in your room.
What the booking website looks like
Privacy Notice → Who are you → Your items → Your basket → Declaration
Check whether the item can be reused
The council points residents toward reuse and charity options first because collected standard bulky items are disposed of as waste.
Choose standard bulky or hazardous electrical
Large electrical goods such as fridges, freezers, TVs and washing machines use the separate hazardous/electrical collection route.
Select “Start a new form”
Use Continue a saved form only if you already saved an unfinished form and have its reference.
Add every item to “Your items”
Anything not listed in the booking request will not be collected.
Review “Your basket” before payment/declaration
Check the item count because one large piece can consume several item slots.
Put booked items outside by 6am
Leave them at the edge of the property where it meets the public highway. Crews do not enter the house.
“Not found” means real cost: if crews cannot locate or safely reach the item, Greater Cambridge says you may need to book and pay again.
Do not book through standard bulky
Cars, tyres, vehicle batteries, pianos, construction material, paint, gas canisters, sheds, mobility scooters and other excluded items need another route.
Large electrical price
The separate hazardous electrical collection is currently £32.50 per item.
Use assisted collection when the problem is mobility, not the collection crew
Collection point agreed
The crew collects the bin from the agreed location and returns it there afterwards.
Front of property preferred
Keep the route easy to access and unlock gates where needed.
Evidence may be requested
Eligibility can be reviewed and Greater Cambridge states the arrangement is reviewed every three years.
Food caddy included
Existing assisted customers automatically receive assisted food-waste collection when that service activates.
Practical difference: if you repeatedly cannot place the bin at the kerb because of mobility, apply for assisted collection rather than submitting missed-bin reports each fortnight.
Milton or Thriplow: what to check before driving
Butt Lane, CB24 6DQ
April–September: Monday–Friday 9am–8pm; Saturday–Sunday 9am–6pm.
Gravel Pit Hill, SG8 7HZ
April–September: 8am–5pm, seven days a week.
Gate closes early
Cambridgeshire says entrance gates close 10 minutes before the published site closing time.
Avoid the busiest period
The county advises avoiding 11am–2pm, weekends and Bank Holidays where practical.
Four checks before leaving Cambridge
Check the exact item is accepted
Do not assume every site handles every material in the same way.
Check today’s opening hours
Use the current county site page, especially around Bank Holidays.
Check your vehicle
Commercial-type vehicles and larger trailers can require an e-permit.
Arrive before the gate-closing cut-off
A 5pm published close means entrance ends earlier because gates close 10 minutes before the listed closing time.
Milton redevelopment: a larger replacement centre is planned, but the county’s current project page says the temporary closure date has not yet been confirmed. Do not publish or rely on an invented closure date.
When Milton eventually closes for construction: the current plan is to direct residents to Thriplow, Witchford and Bluntisham, with a temporary booking system at those sites during Milton’s closure.
Which Cambridge waste website should you open?
Cambridge bin collection FAQs
How do I check my exact Cambridge bin collection day?
Open the Greater Cambridge collection finder, enter your postcode, press Search, choose the exact property and read the dates shown for Black Bin, Blue Bin, Green Bin and Food Waste. Save the collection type together with its date.
What time do Cambridge bins need to be out?
Greater Cambridge requires household rubbish, recycling, garden waste and food-waste containers to be available at the agreed collection point by 6am on the scheduled collection day.
When can I report a missed Cambridge bin?
A qualifying missed household bin can be reported from 3:30pm on collection day until 3:30pm on the next weekday. Check first that it was correctly presented and that no advice card or crew-recorded problem applies.
How do I know if weekly food-waste collection has started at my Cambridge address?
Check the Greater Cambridge In My Area postcode service or your exact property collection calendar. The council also writes to households before their individual start date. Do not copy the start date from a neighbouring street.
How much is an additional Cambridge green-bin permit in 2026/27?
The published 2026/27 additional green-bin permit charge is £52. Greater Cambridge currently says purchases of additional permits and bins are suspended until 1 October 2026.