Ilford Bin Collection Days: Christmas Ran 4 Weeks Late

Redbridge does not collect the way most London boroughs do. Rubbish goes in a wheelie bin, recycling still goes in two open boxes, garden waste is free but only in bags, and food waste exists for about 10,000 homes and nobody else. Four different rules, four different containers.

The council’s collection day checker gives you one date. It does not tell you how long the disruption lasts when a bank holiday hits, and that is the part worth knowing. Everything here comes from Redbridge Council and was checked on 30 August 2026.

The quick answer

Collections run on your normal day until Christmas. The August bank holiday change has passed, and the council’s holiday page still lists nothing for Christmas 2026 (checked 27 September). Put your bin out by 6am on your usual day. Food waste reaches every remaining house in November or December; see below.

Beyond that: rubbish weekly in the wheelie bin, recycling weekly in the boxes, garden waste free and fortnightly from March to late October, and one free bulky collection of up to three items every 12 months. Extra bulky items are £15.20 each. The tip is at Chigwell Road, Woodford Bridge, and you need a council tax bill or driving licence to get in.

What goes in which container

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The split between the two recycling boxes matters, because Redbridge is one of the few London boroughs that still separates paper from everything else at the kerb.

Box 1 takes food tins, drinks cans, glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles, clean plastic pots, tubs and trays, empty aerosols and clean foil. Cartons and Tetra Paks were added on 31 March 2026, along with clean tubes such as face wash. Black plastic trays are still refused.

Box 2 takes paper, envelopes including window ones, thin card and thick card folded to fit. Larger cardboard goes flat beside the box in a bundle no bigger than 2ft by 3ft.

Both boxes go out by 6am, inside your boundary. The council will not empty recycling presented in a dustbin or a wheelie bin, and it will not take black sacks of recycling. Clear sacks and cardboard boxes are fine. All of that is on the recycling collection page.

Two exceptions are worth knowing:

• No wheelie bin? You may put out up to three black sacks a week instead.
• Flat above a shop? You get official red sacks, delivered twice a year in March and September, and they can only go out between 9pm the night before and 6am on the day. There are no recycling collections at all for flats above shops in Redbridge. The council says it is working on a solution and points residents to on-street recycling banks meanwhile.

Bank holidays: the whole week moves

Redbridge does not skip a day and catch up. It slides the entire week, so the last round of the week lands on a Saturday. This was the published change for the August 2026 bank holiday, from the council’s holiday collection dates page:

Christmas: the council has not published 2026 yet

As of 27 September the council’s holiday page still shows only the August bank holiday. There is nothing for Christmas 2026.

Last year’s pattern is the useful guide, and it is longer than most people expect. Redbridge took four weeks to get back to normal after Christmas 2025. Collections were still a day late in the week of 12 January. These were the published changes, captured from the council’s page on 2 January 2026:

The week before Christmas was untouched. Everything from 25 December onwards ran between one and four days late, and the delay only cleared on Monday 19 January. Offensive waste collections were suspended entirely on 25, 26 and 29 December and 1 January.

If 2026 follows the same shape, expect disruption from Christmas week through to the third week of January. We will update this page when the council publishes the dates.

Garden waste is free, and that is unusual

Most councils charge £40 to £75 a year for garden waste. Redbridge charges nothing. The garden waste page sets out a free fortnightly collection on your normal collection day:

• Week 1 rounds: Monday 2 March to Friday 16 October 2026
• Week 2 rounds: Monday 9 March to Friday 23 October 2026
• Maximum five bags per property, at the boundary by 6am
• Open sacks only. Official green sacks or plain open black sacks both work
• Builders’ sacks are refused as too heavy to lift
• Houses with gardens only. Not flats without gardens, not allotments, not businesses

Official 120-litre green sacks cost £2 each from any Redbridge library, up to five per property, with proof of residency required. Only Central Library in Ilford takes cash. The council said it had 10,000 to sell.

One caution. The council’s own FAQ on that page says the service “runs from March to mid November”, which contradicts the October end dates printed higher up the same page. Go by the dates, and check before the last few collections.

Food waste: every house by December

Redbridge started food waste collections on Monday 24 November 2025 with around 10,000 houses. On 17 September 2026 the council announced the rest:

• All remaining houses join in November and December 2026
• Those households get a letter by post between October and November with their caddy delivery and start date
• Flats follow later in a separate phased rollout, with no date given yet

Households get a kitchen caddy, a starter roll of liners and a larger lockable outdoor caddy. Food waste is collected weekly on the same day as everything else, and rubbish and recycling collections carry on unchanged. The food waste page says your start date appears on the collection day checker two months before the service reaches you. Our food waste rollout story has what goes in the caddy.

Wheelie bins for recycling are coming, but not until 2027

The council has confirmed it will roll out recycling wheelie bins borough-wide from 2027, which will end the two-box system.

Two roads went first. Houses on Eastern Avenue and Woodford Avenue switched to a fortnightly recycling wheelie bin on Monday 8 December 2025. The council says the change followed a serious safety incident on Eastern Avenue in December 2023 and was made to protect collection crews. Those households keep weekly rubbish collections and were told to keep their old boxes, because the council will not take them away. The detail is on the waste collection changes page.

Bulky waste, and what a replacement costs

The free bulky allowance is a rolling year, not a calendar one. Book on 14 October and you cannot book free again until 15 October the following year. Extra items must be paid for in advance, and the crew will only take items you listed when you booked. Items must be out by 6am, visible from the road, with gates unlocked. Nobody will knock. Changes need two full working days’ notice. See the bulky waste page.

Sofas count as one item and only one is allowed per booking. Fridges, freezers, mattresses, cookers, carpet up to 15ft and fence panels are all on the accepted list. Rubble, plasterboard and other building waste is not.

Missed collections

Redbridge does not publish a deadline for reporting a missed collection, but it does publish a trap. If you presented your waste in the wrong place, the crew can log it, and you will then be blocked from reporting the collection as missed. Presentation at the boundary, by 6am, is what protects you.

Report by stream:

• Missed rubbish
• Missed recycling
• Missed garden waste
• Missed food waste

For garden waste the council says it investigates with its contractor and aims to resolve reports within two working days. If a road closure or an accident stopped the collection, leave the waste out and the crew will try to return.

Assisted collections are available if nobody at the property can move the containers. The council lists eligibility as being aged 80 or over, ill health, a registered disability, infirmity, short or long-term illness, recovery from surgery, pregnancy without support, or being blind or visually impaired without support. Allow 10 working days for a decision.

Chigwell Road tip

The borough’s reuse and recycling centre is on Chigwell Road, Woodford Bridge, IG8 8PP.

You must bring a council tax bill or driving licence. Bank statements are not accepted. Number plate recognition cameras operate on the gate, and vehicles over 3,500kg are turned away.

Book before you go if you are driving a van, towing a trailer, or bringing DIY and building waste. Luton vans and vans with a tail lift or tipper cannot use Chigwell Road at all. Van drivers need the V5C logbook to prove the weight.

DIY and building waste is capped at 1,000kg per household per rolling year. That covers bathroom suites, tiles, kitchen units, windows, doors, structural wood, rubble, soil, carpet, plasterboard, radiators, boilers, insulation and pipework.

Redbridge is part of the East London Waste Authority, so residents can also use Frizlands Lane in Barking and Dagenham, Gerpins Lane in Havering and Jenkins Lane in Newham. The council notes Gerpins Lane and Jenkins Lane have longer opening hours than Chigwell Road. Full rules are on the reuse and recycling centre page.

Laughing gas canisters go in the gas canister cage at Chigwell Road, and disposable coffee cups are only recycled there, not at the kerb.

Find your own collection day

The council’s checker is at my.redbridge.gov.uk/RecycleRefuse. Enter your address and it returns your rubbish, recycling and garden waste days, plus a food waste day if your property is in phase 1.

Where the rubbish goes afterwards: residual waste from Redbridge wheelie bins is taken to the Jenkins Lane facility for mechanical biological treatment, which the council says cuts the volume by about a third and produces refuse derived fuel rather than landfill.

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