Rubbish, recycling and food waste are all weekly in Hammersmith and Fulham, and no bank holiday moves them, not even Easter. Garden waste £90, bulky waste £51.
Two rules govern bin day in Hammersmith and Fulham, and both run against what most Londoners expect.
The first is that nothing here is fortnightly. Rubbish, recycling and food waste are all collected every week, on the same day. The second is that a bank holiday never moves your collection, and the council is explicit that this includes Easter. Only Christmas and New Year shift anything.
The council states both on its bin collections page: “Your rubbish and recycling bin collection day does not change on or after a bank holiday weekend including over Easter. Collection days do change at Christmas and New Year.”
That is the whole of the bank holiday question, and it is worth knowing because it is the opposite of the rule in most neighbouring boroughs. Below is the rest of the cluster: what goes in which container, what the paid services cost this year, what happens at Christmas, and the one tip a Fulham address can use. Every figure was read from the council’s own pages, or from Western Riverside Waste Authority’s, on 2 September 2026.
Which container takes what
The council has finished rolling out wheeled bins and food caddies to more than 50,000 households. If you never received them, your property was judged unsuitable and you stay on sacks.
- Black wheelie bin. Rubbish, weekly. If you have no bin, use strong refuse sacks, or a dustbin. The council only collects from its own wheeled bins or a bin smaller than 90 litres, and recommends a normal 90 litre dustbin.
- Green wheelie bin. Recycling, weekly, loose. With the new bins you no longer need clear sacks. Glass bottles and jars, paper and card, plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays, cartons, tins, cans, aerosols and foil, and plastic plant pots that are not black.
- Grey outdoor food caddy, 23 litres. Food waste, weekly, and it is free. A 7 litre kitchen caddy sits indoors. Line it with a compostable liner or newspaper, or use nothing. No packaging, no liquids, no plastic film, no pet waste, no garden waste.
- Garden waste sacks. Weekly, but only if you subscribe. Details below.
One local quirk is easy to miss. Anything with a plug, a cable or a battery goes out loose on top of your rubbish bin, and it is collected weekly by the refuse crew. Items must be no bigger than 17cm by 25cm by 25cm, and the small electricals kerbside service is not available to flats or estates with a communal bin.
If you have two collections a week, your food waste is only taken on the earlier day.
How to find your day, and when to complain
Use the council’s own lookup at Check your collection day. It takes a postcode and covers Hammersmith and Fulham addresses only.
Two presentation rules are enforced:
- Put everything out before 6am on your collection day, or after 9pm the night before.
- Leave bins at the edge of your property, close to the pavement but not on it. Crews will not collect from your garden.
Since the new bins arrived, recycling and rubbish are collected by two different vehicles, so one may arrive hours after the other. The council asks you to wait until 4pm before reporting a miss. After that, report a missed collection within 48 hours of your collection day and the crew will return before the next one.
Two exceptions worth knowing. If you live in a basement flat you must bring waste up to street level, but disabled residents can apply for a free assisted collection on 020 8753 1100. And the council runs a free household collection for clinical and incontinence waste and sharps, which needs a referral from a GP, district nurse or social worker.
Christmas is the only time anything moves
The council has not yet published its 2026/27 Christmas dates. The page that is still live covers Christmas 2025, and the pattern it set was narrow. Only four days changed:
| Normal day | Moved to |
|---|---|
| Thursday 25 December | Saturday 27 December |
| Friday 26 December | Sunday 28 December |
| Thursday 1 January | Friday 2 January |
| Friday 2 January | Saturday 3 January |
Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve and every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday round ran as normal. Everything was back to normal by Monday 5 January.
Note what that table implies. The borough collects on a Sunday in Christmas week, which very few London councils do. Garden waste was the exception to the whole arrangement: sack collections stopped from Christmas Eve and did not resume until 15 January.
Real Christmas trees are collected free. Leave the tree where you leave your rubbish, before 7am on your normal collection day, at any point between 5 and 23 January, with pots and decorations removed. There were also ten drop-off points, including Bishops Park, Eelbrook Common on New Kings Road, Normand Park, South Park, Fulham Palace Road Cemetery and the Wormwood Scrubs car park.
Treat all of this as the shape of the coming winter rather than the dates themselves. Check the council’s page again in December.
Garden waste costs £90, and it is weekly
Hammersmith and Fulham charges for garden waste, and third-party sites that say otherwise are wrong. The council’s own garden waste page sets out the deal:
- £90 a year, which covers two 90 litre reusable sacks that the council supplies.
- You can hold up to four subscriptions per property, so eight sacks, at £90 each.
- Collections are weekly, on the same day as your food waste, giving up to 49 a year.
- Sacks arrive within about 10 days, and your 12 months runs from your first collection, not from the day you pay.
What the sacks will not take: food waste, soil, rocks, plant pots, plastic bags, compostable packaging, large branches, logs, trunks, pet bedding and Japanese knotweed. Leaves, prunings, twigs, weeds, old plants and small amounts of fruit are fine.
At £90 for up to 49 weekly collections, this is one of the more generous garden waste schemes in London by frequency, and among the more expensive by headline price. Whether it is worth it depends on how much garden you have, because you can take garden waste to the tip for nothing.
Bulky waste: £51 for three items
Bulky collections are not free, despite what several rubbish-clearance sites claim. The council’s own charges for 2026/27 are:
| Service | Charge |
|---|---|
| Up to 3 items of household bulky waste | £51 |
| Each additional item | £10 |
| Broken-down shed, per shed | £84 |
The counting rule catches people out. A mattress, a bed base and a headboard are three separate items, so a single bed clears the £51 band on its own. Fridges and freezers count as standard items, but food must be removed or they will not be taken.
Before you pay, note that the council itself points to three free routes: the British Heart Foundation and TRAID will collect reusable furniture and electricals, and H&F Freegle will find a neighbour who wants it.
If you do book, the practical steps matter. Attach a notice showing your reference number to every item, or the crew cannot tell your sofa from a fly-tip. Put items out by 6am. Tape fridge and freezer doors shut. You can cancel or reschedule up to 4pm the day before, on weekdays only.
The council will not take tyres, paint, hazardous materials, asbestos, chemicals or large amounts of builders’ waste at any price.
The tip: Smugglers Way, and you must book
Hammersmith and Fulham has no tip of its own. Waste disposal is handled by the Western Riverside Waste Authority, and residents use Smugglers Way, Wandsworth, SW18 1EG. Cringle Dock in Battersea is closed to the public arriving by car.
Opening times, from WRWA’s own answer for a Hammersmith and Fulham resident:
| Day | Open |
|---|---|
| Monday to Friday | 9am to 4pm |
| Saturday | 8am to 6pm |
| Sunday | 8am to 5pm |
It closes on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. Household waste is free for residents.
The booking rules are the part to get right:
- Arriving by car, you must book a slot before you go. Without a booking you will not be let in.
- Arriving on foot, by bicycle or by motorcycle, you do not need to book.
- You cannot book within 35 minutes of the slot starting, so do not leave it late in the day.
- Staff run ID spot-checks, so bring proof of address.
- There is a 2 metre height barrier. A Toyota Hilux, Mercedes Vito or Ford Ranger double cab counts as a van, not a car, and needs to be notified in advance.
DIY waste is treated separately. Small quantities by car are free. By van you get up to 100 litres, or one item no bigger than 2m by 0.75m by 0.7m, once every seven days, with a booking and photo ID.
One warning about WRWA’s own website. Its DIY waste page prices excess DIY waste at £286.70 per tonne with a minimum charge of £154.82 per load. The booking tool’s own guidance text, still dated to a change on 31 December 2023, quotes £248.60 per tonne and a £134.24 minimum. The two do not agree. Ring WRWA on 020 8871 2788 before you rely on either number.
Where else to take things
- Textiles and small electricals. TRAID runs a free home collection and textile banks across the borough.
- Batteries and light bulbs. The council lists collection points.
- Glass, cans and paper. Recycling bring sites are scattered across Fulham, Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush.
The Cleaner Greener hotline is 020 8753 1100, 9am to 5pm on weekdays, or cleaner.greener@lbhf.gov.uk.
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