Petersfield bank holiday bins run as normal in 2027; only Christmas moves. New calendar numbers, weekly food waste, and garden waste at £130 a year.
Your bin still goes out on a bank holiday in East Hampshire. The council’s page says only “most bank holidays”, but its bin calendars settle it: every bank holiday from November 2026 to October 2027 is printed as a normal collection day, with one exception: Christmas and New Year.
This page pulls together the things the council splits across seven separate URLs, and every figure comes from the council’s own pages, first checked on 26 August 2026. The collection days, calendars and food waste sections were updated on 4 November 2026.
The quick answer
- Bank holidays are collected as normal on the new calendars, right through to October 2027.
- Only Christmas and New Year move, and collections shift later, not earlier.
- Three bins plus a box: green for rubbish, black for recycling, brown for paid garden waste, and a glass box.
- Rubbish, recycling and glass are fortnightly, alternating green and black week by week. Food waste is weekly.
- Garden waste is £130 a year, plus £86 for the bin, and there is a waiting list.
- Missed bins must be reported by 4pm the next working day, or you wait a fortnight.
- The main bin calendars have gone from 20 to 10, so your number may have changed. Our table gives the new one.
Which bin is which
East Hampshire runs alternate weekly collections: green one week, black the next. Glass goes out in a separate box, and food waste goes in its own caddy every week. Full lists of what is accepted are on the council’s what can (and can’t) go in your bins page.
| Container | What it takes | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Green bin | Rubbish, plus plastic packaging, film, cartons, polystyrene, nappies, pet waste and shredded paper | Fortnightly |
| Black bin | Paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, tins and cans, empty aerosols | Fortnightly |
| Glass box | Rinsed bottles and jars, no lids or corks | Fortnightly |
| Brown bin | Garden waste, subscription only | Fortnightly, 25 collections a year |
| Food caddy | Food waste, in a 23 litre outdoor caddy | Weekly |
Two local quirks catch people out. Plastic tubs, trays and pots go in the green rubbish bin, not the black recycling bin, because the recycling machine sorts by bottle shape and rejects anything that is not one. And glass has its own box, which must be a 38 litre box weighing under 5.5kg. Pizza boxes, shredded paper, tissues and foil are all refused by the black bin.
The council also warns that a contaminated black bin gets a hanger and is left behind, and the crew will not come back for it until the next scheduled collection.
Bank holidays: nothing changes
This is the part worth bookmarking. On the council’s new bin calendars for November 2026 to October 2027, every bank holiday outside Christmas and New Year is printed as an ordinary collection day on all 10 main rounds, although the council’s page says only “most bank holidays”:
- Good Friday, 26 March 2027: Friday rounds collected on the day
- Easter Monday, 29 March 2027: Monday rounds collected on the day
- Early May, Monday 3 May 2027: collected on the day
- Spring, Monday 31 May 2027: collected on the day
- Summer, Monday 30 August 2027: collected on the day
Christmas and New Year are the exception. Last year, 2025/26, the shift ran for three weeks. On the Monday rounds, the 29 December collection moved to Wednesday 31 December, 5 January became Wednesday 7 January, 12 January became Tuesday 13 January, and normal service resumed on 19 January. Friday rounds saw 26 December move to Tuesday 30 December, then a Saturday collection on 17 January before returning to normal.
Two things follow from that. Christmas collections in East Hampshire go later than the printed day, so putting the bin out early does not help. And some replacement days are Saturdays.
The Christmas 2026 dates are now published. From Friday 25 December to Friday 8 January every collection runs one day late, with Saturday rounds on 2 and 9 January, and normal service resumes on Monday 11 January 2027. The full day-by-day table is on our Christmas bin collections page.
Find your own collection day
The quickest route is now the council’s waste day finder: find your address and it shows your next dates for food waste, recycling, refuse, glass and any garden waste. The council says the search is linked to the system East Hampshire Norse uses to plan collections and updates daily.
For a printable version, download your calendar for November 2026 to October 2027 from find your bin calendar. If you do not know the number, type your address into the council’s where I live page and look under “waste and recycling”.
There are now 10 main calendars, down from 20, numbered 1 to 10 and running Monday to Friday. Each replaces two old numbers, and when we compared the PDFs the dates and bins carried on unchanged: see the old and new numbers. There are also nine “hard to reach” rounds, numbered H1 to H9, where rubbish and recycling can fall on a different day from glass. Food waste has its own five weekday calendars, and garden waste has ten, G1 to G10. If your calendar number starts with an H, you cannot join the garden waste service at all.
Bins must be out by 6am on the day, and the council asks for them to be put out the night before.
Garden waste costs £130, and there is a waiting list
This is the figure most people are looking for, and it is high. From the council’s garden waste page:
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Annual bin subscription | £130.00 |
| 240 litre brown bin, including delivery | £86.00 |
| Sack subscription, existing customers only | £98.00 |
| Sack subscription with benefit reduction | £28.00 |
| Replacement sack | £17.00 |
So a household starting from scratch pays £216 in year one. The subscription buys 25 fortnightly collections, is non-refundable, and renews at the end of the calendar month in which you joined.
Capacity is limited. The council says it can only take new customers where there is space on the round, and it cannot take any new customers on the hard-to-reach rounds. The service does not run over Christmas, but crews collect real Christmas trees with the garden waste on the first collection of the new year.
Soil, rubble, food scraps, vegetable peelings and fruit from trees are all refused.
Weekly food waste started in October 2026
The biggest change to bins in Petersfield this year is the weekly food waste collection, which began across the district in the week of 5 October under the Environment Act 2021. It comes on the same day every week except at Christmas and New Year.
Most homes get:
- a five litre kitchen caddy
- a 23 litre outdoor caddy, emptied weekly
- stickers for both caddies and the refuse bin
Homes sharing bin stores get a kitchen caddy and access to a shared 140 litre bin. The council estimates food waste is about 30% of what goes in the green bin. Our food waste report covers missed caddies and what to do if yours never arrived.
Cooking oil, liquids, packaging and pet bedding are excluded. Bones, shells, eggshells and pet food are accepted.
Bulky waste: £28 to £291
Prices come from the council’s bulky waste collection service page and include VAT. The charge is per item size, not per collection.
| Size | Cost | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Medium | £28.00 | Microwave, TV, bicycle, vacuum cleaner, ironing board |
| Large | £41.00 | Washing machine, fridge, armchair, two-seater sofa, single bed |
| Extra large | £58.00 | Three-seater sofa, chest of drawers, double bed, king mattress |
| Bulky | £97.00 | Wardrobe, corner sofa, sideboard, three-piece suite |
| Full load, by volume | £291.00 | Special collection |
If you receive certain benefits, the council collects four bulky items free once in every rolling 12 months.
Upholstered furniture is collected separately from other bulky waste, because of the rules on persistent organic pollutants. Items must be at the edge of your property and visible from the road by 7am, gates unlocked, and crews will not enter the property. Cancellations need 48 hours’ notice.
The council will not take glass or furniture with glass panels, fitted kitchen or bathroom units, batteries, paint, rubble, soil, garage doors or gym equipment. American-style fridge freezers are refused on weight.
Missed a collection? You have until 4pm the next working day
Leave the bin out and report it through your MyEHDC account. The council’s missed bin page sets a hard deadline: reports must be made before 4pm on the next working day after the collection was due. Miss that and you wait for the next scheduled collection.
The council will not return if the bin was tagged as too heavy or contaminated, was not on the property boundary, or was not out in time. If crews fall behind by the end of the week they may work the Saturday to catch up, so a Friday round is worth reporting rather than assuming.
The same page carries live service updates. On 25 August 2026 it recorded that glass could not be collected from Lythe Lane in Steep because of roadworks, with crews returning the next day. If your road is affected by works, the Petersfield roadworks page is worth a look before you report a missed bin.
The tip: booking required at all three sites
The recycling centres are run by Hampshire County Council, not East Hampshire, and you must book an appointment at all of them.
| Site | Address | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Petersfield | Bedford Road, GU32 3LJ | Site has steps |
| Alton | Omega Business Park, GU34 2QE | |
| Bordon | Station Road, GU35 0LG | Site has steps |
All three keep the same hours, from the county council’s Petersfield, Alton and Bordon pages:
- 9am to 6pm, 1 April to 30 September
- 9am to 4pm, 1 October to 28 February
- 9am to 5pm, 1 March to 31 March
- Closed every day between 1pm and 1.30pm
- Open seven days a week except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day
That half-hour closure at lunchtime is easy to miss and catches people who have driven over on a Saturday. Vans and some larger vehicles need a permit, which is checked on the county council’s site.
One current warning worth knowing before you load the car: Hampshire says acceptance of fridges and freezers cannot be guaranteed at the moment, because of national recycling capacity problems, and sites may turn them away or redirect you once storage is full.
Where the waste goes
Garden waste goes to a composting site in Hampshire and comes back as soil conditioner for parks and gardens. Recycling is processed by Hampshire County Council, and a new materials recovery facility is being built at Eastleigh. Until it opens, the council asks residents not to add anything beyond the current list to the black bin, even though the national Simpler Recycling rules are coming.
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