Wokingham Bin Collection Days: 5.30am on Bank Holidays

Two things about Wokingham’s bin service catch people out, and neither is obvious from the council’s website.

The first is bank holidays. Crews here work them. What changes is the deadline: you have to have your bin out an hour earlier than usual, by 5.30am rather than 6.30am. The rule is buried in a service standards PDF, not on the bin pages.

The second is glass. It does not go out at the kerb at all. There is no box, no bin and no bag for it in Wokingham borough, and putting it in a green bag gets the whole bag left behind as contaminated.

This page pulls together what the council spreads across a dozen pages: what goes in each container, what bank holidays and Christmas actually do to your day, what garden waste and bulky collections cost this year, and how the tip booking works.

The short answer

• Black bin, 180 litres: fortnightly. General rubbish only.
• Green bags, 60 litres: fortnightly, on the weeks the black bin does not go out. No limit on how many.
• Food waste bin, 23 litres: every week, on the same day as whichever of the other two is due.
• Brown garden waste bin: fortnightly, £99 a year, 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027.
• No glass and no textiles at the kerb. Both go to a bring bank.
• Bank holidays are worked as normal, except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. Put bins out by 5.30am on a bank holiday.
• Bulky collection: £72 for up to three large items plus three small electricals.
• Report a missed bin by the end of the next working day, or the council will not come back.
• Find your day: the council’s collection day finder.

What goes out, and when

Wokingham Borough Council runs the collections itself, through a contract with Biffa that started on 1 June 2026. The containers are set out in the council’s Household Waste Service Standards, updated April 2026.

The green bag is the unusual one. It is a waterproof bag with Velcro strips at the top, not a box or a bin, and the council says there is no limit on the number you put out as long as the contents are right. Write your house number on them and keep spares indoors, because sunlight degrades them. Replacements are free from collection hubs around the borough.

Four things will get a green bag left on the pavement:

• glass bottles and jars, which have no kerbside collection here
• textiles, which also have no kerbside collection
• black plastic food trays, though trays of any other colour are fine
• plastic bags of any kind, including using one to line the bag

Contamination is not a warning. The council’s standard is blunt: bins and bags with the wrong items “will not be emptied and will be recorded as ‘contaminated’”, and it is your job to take the wrong items out before the next scheduled collection. There is no return visit.

Where the glass goes

Wokingham is in the re3 partnership with Reading and Bracknell Forest, and re3 says residents of the three boroughs can use more than 130 glass banks between them. Every bank in the borough now takes mixed colours, so you no longer have to sort clear from green.

What the banks will not take: Pyrex and other glass cookware, drinking glasses, vases, mirrors, ceramics, nail varnish bottles, light bulbs and tubes. Broken window glass goes to the recycling centre instead.

Leave the lids and caps on the bottles and jars, re3 says, because loose ones get lost in sorting. Corks should come out and can go on a home compost heap.

Textile banks work the same way. The council also points residents to Anglo Doorstep Collections, a free doorstep service for clothes, shoes, towels, toys and small electricals in reusable condition.

Bank holidays: worked, but an hour earlier

The council does not publish a bank holiday policy page. The answer is in paragraph 5.7 of the service standards, and it is clear enough:

Waste containers must be presented at the edge of the property by 6:30am on the collection day or by 5:30am on bank holidays. We do not collect on Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Years Day.

That has held in practice. Ahead of the May 2026 bank holiday the council said collections “will still go ahead as normal” but that crews would be “starting much earlier than usual, with collections beginning from 5.30am” (Wokingham.Today, 23 May 2026).

Collections can happen any time between 5.30am and 4pm, and the council does not guarantee a time. Putting bins out the night before is the safe option, and the council recommends it.

Christmas is the disruption, not the bank holidays

Because the three days crews do not work fall on ordinary collection days, Christmas shunts the whole borough by one day for more than a fortnight. The council’s 2025-26 calendar shows how far it ran: every day from 25 December onwards moved, and the catch-up did not finish until Saturday 10 January.

Source: the council’s 2025-26 collection calendar. The equivalent calendar for Christmas 2026 has not been published yet, so treat the table above as the shape of what happens rather than as this year’s dates. Our Christmas bin collections page tracks the 2026 dates and will carry them the day the council publishes. Homes on narrow access routes get a letter of their own, because their collections change separately.

Crews work Saturdays through the festive period to catch up, again from 5.30am.

Garden waste

The brown bin service is a subscription. It costs £99 for the year running 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027, and it does not stop for winter: the council promises 26 fortnightly collections across all 52 weeks. Bins are 240 litres and arrive within 10 working days (order or renew garden waste collection).

Some rules worth knowing before you pay:

• No part of the annual charge is refunded once collections have started.
• A subscription cannot be transferred to another address, though if you move within the borough you take the bin with you and update the account.
• A bin is only supplied where there is not already an official council garden waste bin at the property.
• Properties on narrow access routes cannot subscribe to the bin service at all. They can use sacks instead.
• Frozen garden waste will not be dug out. If the bin cannot be emptied in a cold snap, crews return on the next scheduled date.

If you only have a little, brown compostable sacks are £2 each and hold 75 litres. Buy them online and collect them from a hub, and note that the purchase voucher expires after 30 days. Since the new contract started, sack collections have to be booked, at least two full working days before your usual garden waste day. Subscribers with a bin do not need to book: they can just stand the sacks next to it (brown sacks and waste collections).

Waste generated by a gardener you have paid is classed as commercial waste. The council will not take it, and says so explicitly.

Bulky items: £72

A bulky collection is £72.00 and covers up to three large items plus up to three small electrical or battery-operated items (bulky waste collections). You can book a date up to eight weeks ahead, and as many collections a year as you like, though only one a week.

The council will take furniture, beds, wardrobes, tables and chairs, washing machines, tumble dryers, dishwashers, televisions and monitors, rolled carpet up to six feet, toys, small trampolines, and domestic fridges and freezers.

It will not take:

• construction or DIY waste, rubble, sheds, fences or gates
• built-in furniture
• garden waste or bagged waste
• pianos, treadmills and cross trainers
• hazardous or clinical waste

Items must be at the front boundary by 6.30am, reachable from the public highway. Crews will not go into rear gardens, garages or behind gates. Changes mean cancelling and rebooking, and cancellations close at 3pm the day before.

Old IT equipment is a cheaper route: the council’s Digital Donations scheme takes it at Wokingham, Woodley and Lower Earley libraries.

Missed collections: one working day to report it

This is the deadline that matters most, because missing it ends the matter. Report a missed bin no later than the end of the next working day after your scheduled collection (report a missed collection). Leave the waste out while you wait.

If the crew logged no reason for skipping you, the council will return by the end of the next working day after your report. If the crew logged a reason, it will not return until your next scheduled collection. The reasons it treats as your problem, not its own, are listed in the service standards:

• the bin was not at the right collection point, or was not out at the time of collection
• the lid was not fully closed, or the bin was overfilled or too heavy
• extra waste was left beside the bin
• the wrong items were inside, or waste went out on the wrong week
• vegetation had grown across the access

One exception goes the other way. Collections missed because a parked car blocked the lorry are returned to “at the earliest available opportunity”.

The tip: book first, and bring ID

Wokingham has no recycling centre of its own. Residents use the two re3 sites, which are run by FCC Environment for Bracknell Forest, Reading and Wokingham councils together:

• Smallmead Recycling Centre, Island Road, Reading RG2 0RP
• Longshot Lane Recycling Centre, Longshot Lane, Bracknell RG12 1RL

Both open seven days a week, 8am to 8pm from April to September and 8am to 6pm from October to March. They shut at 4pm on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve and close entirely on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day (re3 site facilities).

Two conditions catch people out:

• You must book a 30-minute slot, up to seven days ahead, and turn up at the site you booked. Bring the reference number and your name.
• You must bring proof that you live in one of the three boroughs, issued within the last four months. A driving licence, council tax bill, utility bill, bank statement, re3-council bus pass, blue badge or resident parking permit all count. Photos of documents and email confirmations do not.

Vans and other commercial-type vehicles need a permit, which is built into the booking process. Box vehicles are not allowed on site at all. If you are dropping off DIY waste, the proof of residency has to show your full address.

Both sites have a reuse area where items still fit for use can be left for someone else or passed to Sue Ryder.

Odds and ends the council answers quietly

• Extra capacity. You can apply for more if you have hygiene waste that cannot be recycled, six or more permanent residents, or a registered HMO. More than one child in nappies gets you one extra bag, collected fortnightly with the black bin, reviewed each year.
• Assisted collections. Available if nobody in the household can put the bins out. The collection point has to be inside the property boundary, visible, not behind a gate, and no more than 25 metres from the kerb.
• Clinical waste. Free, but you have to be referred by a GP, district nurse, hospital or NHS trust. Incontinence pads and stoma bags are double-bagged and go in the general waste bin instead.
• Bins are the council’s, not yours. They stay with the property when you move. Lost, stolen or damaged bins have to be replaced at your cost, though the council does not publish the price, so this page cannot tell you what it is.
• Take the bins back in within 24 hours of collection. That is a stated condition, not a suggestion.

Where else to look

Wokingham Online’s other local information pages: roadworks and travel, parking in Wokingham, council tax bands, house prices and planning news.