Food waste is collected weekly, and your day is on MyEHDC rather than the printed bin calendar, with what to do if your caddy was missed. Checked October 2026.

Weekly food waste collections started across East Hampshire in the week beginning Monday 5 October. It is the biggest change to household bins in Petersfield, Alton, Bordon, Liss and Liphook in years, and every home in the district is affected. The East Hampshire food waste collection is weekly, from a 23 litre outdoor caddy, while every other bin stays fortnightly.

Updated 14 October: in the first week, East Hampshire Norse visited 57,000 homes and collected more than 42 tonnes of food waste, the council said on 12 October. Collections stay on the same day each week. The council asks you to turn the yellow caddy sticker to face the road so crews can see it in the dark. If your caddies never arrived, report it through MyEHDC as a general enquiry, choosing “I haven’t had my food waste containers delivered”.

Updated 25 October: the East Hampshire food waste collection took more than 49 tonnes in its second week, 14% more than the first, the council said on 20 October. Seven new lorries run the rounds, each with a driver and two loaders, and the service has created 25 permanent jobs at East Hampshire Norse. On 25 October the council’s calendar page still offered only the October 2025 to October 2026 calendars, with the new set due to begin in November.

Updated 4 November: the new bin calendars for November 2026 to October 2027 are out, with five separate food waste sheets, one for each weekday. The main calendars have gone from 20 to 10, so your number may have changed. Find your day on the council’s waste day finder. The section below was written before they appeared.

East Hampshire food waste collection day: why it is not on your bin calendar

Added 18 October 2026, from the council’s calendar and missed-bin pages read today.

If you have looked for your East Hampshire food waste collection day on the printed calendar and not found it, that is not a mistake on your copy. The council’s bin calendar page still offers the October 2025 to October 2026 set, 20 numbered calendars from Monday to Friday plus nine hard-to-reach H rounds, and every one of them is headed “refuse, recycling and glass”. They were printed a year before food waste started.

  • The new calendars are not out yet. The same page says “the next set of calendars will begin in November 2026”, for both the main rounds and the garden waste rounds. On 18 October the October 2026 sets were still the only ones posted.
  • Until they are, MyEHDC is the only record of your food day. Search your address on the waste day finder. Food waste is collected every week; refuse, recycling, glass and garden waste stay fortnightly.
  • Do not know your calendar number? The council’s route is “where I live” on its website: type your address, and the calendar is listed under waste and recycling. You will need the number to pick the right November calendar.
  • Get told about missed rounds. The missed bin page offers email bulletins when collections in your area run into problems. On Friday 16 October, for example, crews could not collect glass from Sunderton Lane, Clanfield, because of roadworks and were due back on Monday 19 October, with boxes out by 6am.
  • Caddy problem more complicated than one missing pack? The council asks you to call its Case Management team on 01730 234295, 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. A single missing caddy pack is still a general enquiry on MyEHDC.
  • Turn the yellow sticker to the road. Crews start in the dark, and the council says a sticker facing the road makes a caddy less likely to be missed.

For the fortnightly bins, and how Christmas and New Year move them, see our Petersfield bin collection days page.

East Hampshire food waste collection: the rules from week one

Added 9 October 2026, from the council’s missed-bin and caddy pages read today.

The council’s bin collections page now calls the service “now live”, and its caddy page says the distributors “have now covered all of the district”. Four rules decide whether your caddy is emptied:

  • Out by 6am, at the edge of your property. The council’s missed bin page says a container not on the boundary, or not out by 6am on collection day, “will not be collected and we will not return”.
  • Report a missed caddy before 4pm on the next working day. Miss that deadline and you wait for the following week’s collection. A caddy missed on a Friday has to be reported by 4pm on Monday.
  • Leave it out while you report it. The council asks you to leave a missed container out, and says its crews may work on Saturday if they fall behind during the week.
  • Check the daily service update first. The same page carries a dated note of which rounds have been finished. On Thursday 8 October it said every scheduled collection had been completed and that any caddy not emptied should be reported through the missed bin form.

Still no caddies? Distribution is finished, so if you have nothing, make a general enquiry on MyEHDC and choose “I haven’t had my food waste containers delivered”. The council says everyone who has already told it is on its list.

Need help getting the caddy to the kerb? The council runs assisted collections for residents who cannot move their containers and have nobody in the household to do it. Crews collect from the doorstep or an agreed spot, but not from behind gates, more than 25 metres from the kerb or more than eight steps up. Apply through MyEHDC or call 01730 234295. It is not available to homes using communal bin stores.

Collections have started: what to do now

Updated 7 October 2026, from the council’s own pages read today.

  • Your day is on MyEHDC. Search your address on the council’s waste day finder. The bin calendar page says food waste “is collected weekly”; refuse, recycling, glass and garden waste stay fortnightly.
  • Caddy not emptied? The council’s food waste page says to report it online through MyEHDC “as you would another missed bin”.
  • What goes in: all raw and cooked food and plate scrapings, meat and fish including bones, tea bags and coffee grounds, peelings, out-of-date or mouldy food, solidified fat, shells, dairy, bread, eggs and eggshells, rice, pasta and pet food.
  • What stays out: packaging of any kind (except the caddy liner), glass, liquids such as milk or gravy, cooking oil, cat litter, pet bedding and garden waste.
  • Flats with communal bin stores get a kitchen caddy and access to a shared 140-litre bin rather than an outdoor caddy each.

The final checks before the launch

Published 2 October 2026, the week before collections began.

  • First collections: the week beginning Monday 5 October. The council’s food waste page now opens with “Collections start next week!”
  • Your collection day is already published. Search your address on the council’s waste day finder (MyEHDC). The bin calendar page confirms “food waste collection days are now available”. The day is still called provisional, because route testing is running this week, so look it up again on Saturday 3 or Sunday 4 October.
  • Some hard-to-reach homes have already moved. The council says collections from some homes on its 4x4 hard-to-reach rounds have changed. If you are on an H-numbered calendar, recheck before Monday.
  • The last caddies arrive this week. According to the council’s caddy page, distributors “have now covered most of the district”. Still to finish this week: homes on bin calendars 6 and 8 (both Tuesday rounds) and flats with communal bin stores.
  • Still nothing on your doorstep when your neighbours have theirs? Make a general enquiry on MyEHDC and choose “I haven’t had my food waste containers delivered”.
  • Put the outdoor caddy out with your other bins. The council’s rule for all kerbside collections is that bins must be out by 6am on collection day.

When to start filling the caddy: the council’s questions page now says “Don’t start using the caddies until the week before your first collection”, so this weekend is the point to start. It does not change your other bins: refuse, recycling and glass stay on the fortnightly pattern, and the current printed calendars run to October, with a new set due to start in November 2026.

How the launch was set up

Caddies are already being delivered. The council’s instruction is to leave them alone for now.

“Do not start using your caddy until the week of your first collection,” East Hampshire District Council says on its food waste collections page.

From Monday 21 September the new crews start driving the rounds without collecting anything. The council announced the route testing on 18 September. It is checking that the routes work and that the new vehicles can reach every home.

That matters for one practical reason. Testing can change your collection day. The council says days will be published through MyEHDC in late September, then adds that it is “worth double-checking your collection day on 3/4 October before collections begin”.

Two-column list of what East Hampshire will accept in the food waste caddy, including all raw and cooked food, meat and fish with bones, tea bags, peelings, shellfish shells, dairy, eggshells and pet food, against what it will refuse, including packaging, glass, liquids such as milk and gravy, cooking oil, cat litter, pet bedding and garden waste
Graphic by Petersfield Online. Source: East Hampshire District Council.
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What you get, and when

Caddy packs are being delivered across the district now. The council says distribution takes about six weeks and that some homes will not get theirs until the last week of September.

Most homes receive:

  • a five litre caddy for the kitchen
  • a 23 litre outdoor caddy, which is the one crews empty
  • stickers for both caddies and for the refuse bin

Flats and homes that share a bin store get the kitchen caddy and access to a new 140 litre shared bin instead.

The outdoor caddy locks shut. The council makes a point of this in its questions and answers page, arguing that a lockable container emptied weekly should attract fewer flies and less pest activity than food left in a green bin for a fortnight.

Two rules are easy to miss:

  • The caddies are yours, paid for by central government. Lose or damage one and you may be charged for a replacement.
  • You must put out the council’s outdoor caddy. Its caddy instructions warn that “non-standard outdoor caddies may not be emptied”. You can use whatever you like indoors.

No liners are supplied, and the council does not want you to buy compostable ones. Bags are removed at the digestion plant and thrown away separately, and it says compostable bags are more carbon-intensive to make and harder to strip out than an ordinary plastic bag you already have.

The law says this should have started in March

The change comes from the Environment Act 2021, through the rules the government calls Simpler Recycling.

Defra’s own policy update says that by 31 March 2026 councils in England were required to collect the core recyclable waste streams from all households, “including introducing weekly food waste collections for most homes, unless a transitional arrangement applies”.

East Hampshire starts more than six months after that date. The same document sets out when a council can take longer: where “long-term waste disposal (mechanical biological treatment and energy from waste) contracts present a barrier”. East Hampshire’s refuse is burned, as the council’s own page confirms when it says recycling food will cut “the amount of waste sent for incineration”. The council has not published which arrangement applies to it, or why the start date is October rather than March.

What the government has paid for it

The money is on the record, even though the council has not put a figure on it locally.

Defra publishes its food waste grant determinations authority by authority. East Hampshire District Council appears twice:

  • £258,680 revenue funding for 2024/25, under determination 31/7654
  • £108,557.11 revenue funding for 2025/26, under determination 31/7989

That is £367,237.11 in revenue grant across the two years. Neither of the two capital annexes published on the same page lists East Hampshire at all, so the capital cost of the caddies and the new vehicles is not in the public record there.

For scale, the 2025/26 list has East Hampshire between its two neighbours: Test Valley on £107,370.78 and Winchester on £117,908.37. The largest Hampshire allocation that year went to New Forest, £151,133.46, and the smallest to Eastleigh, £6,357.37.

What happens to the food

Food waste is about 30% of what currently goes in the green bin, according to the council. At the moment that share is burned.

Instead it will go to anaerobic digestion, which produces gas for electricity and a soil improver for farms. The council has not named the plant that will take East Hampshire’s food waste, and points readers to a video made by Winchester City Council, saying the process here will be the same.

Collections are being run by East Hampshire Norse, the council’s joint venture, which has recruited crews and is taking delivery of specialist vehicles.

What it means for you

  • Your other bins do not change. Your green refuse bin stays on its fortnightly round, and your recycling and glass are unaffected.
  • Keep the caddy pack when it arrives. Read the leaflet, put the large sticker on the outdoor caddy and write your house number or name on it in permanent marker, so yours does not get mixed up with a neighbour’s.
  • Start using it this weekend. The council’s advice is to begin in the week before your first collection.
  • Check your collection day twice. MyEHDC has had the provisional days since late September; check again on 3 or 4 October, because route testing may have moved yours.
  • If your neighbours have caddies and you do not, the council asks you to report it through MyEHDC as a general enquiry, choosing food waste.
  • You do not have to take part, but the council recommends keeping the caddies anyway, because replacements may be charged for later.

Our Petersfield bin collection days page covers the rest of the calendar, including the one thing East Hampshire never puts on a web page: bank holiday collections run as normal here, and only Christmas and New Year move.

Frequently asked questions

When does East Hampshire food waste collection start?

In the week beginning Monday 5 October 2026. Collections are weekly from then on, across the whole district.

How do I find my East Hampshire food waste collection day?

Search your address on the council’s waste day finder on MyEHDC. Days were published in late September, but the council asks everyone to check again on 3 or 4 October in case route testing has moved them.

I have not received my food waste caddies. What do I do?

The council says its distributors have now covered the whole district. If you still have none, make a general enquiry on MyEHDC and choose “I haven’t had my food waste containers delivered”.

My food waste caddy was not emptied. How long do I have to report it?

Until 4pm on the next working day after your collection was due, through the missed bin form on MyEHDC. Leave the caddy out. After that deadline the council will not come back and the caddy is emptied on your next weekly collection.

What time does the food waste caddy need to be out?

By 6am on your collection day, at the boundary of your property. The council will not return for a caddy that was put out late or left away from the kerb.

Is food waste on the East Hampshire bin calendar?

Not yet. The printed calendars run from October 2025 to October 2026 and cover refuse, recycling and glass only. The council says a new set begins in November 2026. Until it is published, find your food waste day on MyEHDC.

How much food waste is East Hampshire collecting?

More than 42 tonnes from 57,000 homes in the first week from 5 October, and more than 49 tonnes in the second week, a rise of 14%, according to the council’s updates of 12 and 20 October.

Is East Hampshire food waste collected every week?

Yes. Food waste is collected weekly. Refuse, recycling, glass and garden waste stay on their fortnightly pattern, except over Christmas and New Year.

Do I need to buy caddy liners?

No. None are supplied and you do not need one. The council prefers a reused plastic bag to a compostable liner, because all bags are stripped out at the digestion plant.

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