Black bin fortnightly, three recycling boxes, garden waste £52 for 2026, bulky pickup £33.50. Why York has no food caddy, and the bins set to replace the boxes.

York does not run the system most of England now runs. There is no food caddy, the recycling goes out in boxes rather than a bin, and the household waste bin is emptied once a fortnight. All three of those things are deliberate, all three have a documented reason, and one of them is about to change. This page covers what goes where, what each extra service costs in 2026, and the answers the council’s own pages split across a dozen URLs.

To look up the collection day for your own address, use the council’s waste collection calendar, which runs off your postcode at myaccount.york.gov.uk/bin-collections. We have not built a lookup of our own, because the council’s is the only one that reflects a round change.

What York collects, and in what

What goes in what in York Four containers, three of them free. There is no separate food waste caddy. Black bin Fortnightly Everything that is not recycled, food waste included. Free. Box 1 Fortnightly Paper and cardboard, kept apart from everything else. Box 2 Fortnightly Plastics, cans, tins, foil, cartons and glass, all mixed together. Green bin Fortnightly, March to Dec Garden waste only. 180 litres, £52 a year by subscription. Source: City of York Council waste and recycling pages, checked 15 August 2026. Graphic by The York Times
York runs a twin stream recycling service, so the sorting happens at your gate rather than at the depot.

Household waste goes in one black wheelie bin with the lid shut, or up to three black sacks if your property has not been converted to a bin, and it is collected fortnightly (City of York Council). Anything presented beyond that is left behind.

Recycling goes out in kerbside boxes, sorted into two streams. Paper and cardboard are kept entirely separate. Plastics (types 1, 2 and 5), metal cans and tins, aluminium foil, cartons and glass all go in together (City of York Council). The council issues up to three boxes and lids free, you can present a maximum of six, and a container of around 55 litres is accepted if you need an extra one. The boxes are not colour coded: the council’s own pages describe them by what goes in them. Do not present recycling in a cardboard box or a plastic bag, and never put broken glass out.

Two details catch people out. Glass in a plastic bag will be left, for crew safety. And since November 2025 the council also takes tetra packaging and toothpaste tubes at the kerbside, added to comply with the Simpler Recycling rules that landed in March 2026 (Recycling Review, City of York Council Executive, 3 March 2026, para 19).

Everything must be at the front edge of your property between 7.00pm the night before and 7.00am on collection day. That 7am deadline is the one that decides whether a missed collection is the council’s fault or yours.

Why there is no food waste caddy, and why there will not be one

England’s Simpler Recycling rules required councils to collect food waste weekly from March 2026. York was not one of them, and the reason is written plainly in the council’s own report to its Executive:

“The Council is not required to offer food waste collections from domestic properties in March 2026 due to having a transitional arrangement in place until 2043.” (Recycling Review, 3 March 2026, para 22)

2043 is not a typo. The exemption is tied to York’s disposal contract. Everything in the black bin goes to Allerton Waste Recovery Park, where a mechanical plant pulls out remaining metal and plastic, an anaerobic digestion plant treats the organic fraction including food waste into biogas, and what is left is burned to generate electricity, enough for around 66,000 homes (same report, paras 23 to 25). The council describes the result as a “zero waste to landfill” service.

So in York, food waste goes in the black bin. It is still being separated and digested, just at Allerton rather than at your back door. If you have moved from a council that gave you a caddy, that is the answer.

The other change already on the horizon: from March 2027 the rules extend to soft plastic films. York’s officers are working out how to collect them, and for now they are permitted in the tins, plastics and glass stream (para 21).

What is changing: boxes out, wheeled bins in

The council wants to scrap the boxes. Its proposal is two 240 litre black wheeled bins with coloured lids, one blue for paper and card and one red for plastic, metals, glass and cartons, replacing the three boxes that between them hold about 165 litres (recycling review consultation). The catch is the frequency: each recycling bin would be emptied every four weeks, on alternating cycles, so the pattern would run household waste, then paper and card, then household waste, then plastics, metals and glass.

The consultation ran from 23 March to 1 May 2026 and drew more than 13,000 responses. Reported results put 63.7% saying wheeled bins would make recycling easier and 72% saying larger bins would help with bulky cardboard, against 38.7% raising storage space and 16.7% the look of them on the street. The switch is costed at around £2.8 million of capital against annual savings of roughly £310,000 to £320,000, and it went to the Place Scrutiny Committee on 16 June (Gazette & Herald). No final decision had been published when we checked on 15 August 2026.

Two groups are already out of scope. Around 2,568 city centre properties whose recycling is collected by St Nicks under contract would not get bins, because of storage. Neither would the roughly 8,000 properties covered by the Bags to Bins rollout during 2025 and 2026, which converted black sack streets to wheelie bins; those would come in a later phase (Recycling Review, paras 31 and 47). If you were in a Bags to Bins phase 3 street, the window for a free replacement bin closed on 31 July 2026 and requests are now charged (City of York Council).

Worth knowing why the council will not simply mix everything: keeping paper and card apart from the rest earns York about £800,000 a year in material income, and the report calls that income critical to council finances (para 30).

Bank holidays and Christmas

Here the honest answer is that City of York Council does not publish a standing bank holiday rule. There is no page that says collections shift by a day. What the council does say is that the waste collection calendar “is updated in early December to show the following year, and any changes to collection dates over the festive period”, and that the calendar is subject to change for weather or resources.

That makes the calendar, not a rule of thumb, the thing to check. When we looked on 15 August 2026, no notice had been posted on the council’s news feed about the 31 August bank holiday. The two recycling centres do publish fixed closures: both shut every Wednesday, and Towthorpe also closes on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.

Garden waste: £52 for 2026, and it is a subscription

Garden waste is not free in York. The 2026 season runs 2 March to 4 December 2026, with fortnightly collections over about 40 weeks, and the charge is £52.00 per bin, which the council puts at £2.60 a collection (subscription terms, council news, 2026 scheme). That went up from £49 for the 2025 season.

  • The discount: 50%, so £26.00, if you receive Council Tax Support or someone in the household has a severe mental impairment council tax exemption. No other council tax discount qualifies, so a single person discount does not get you this.
  • The bin: a standard 180 litre green wheeled bin issued by the council.
  • Refunds: you can cancel and get your money back within 14 days of signing up. After that there is no refund or part refund, including if you cancel mid season.
  • Contamination: a green bin with the wrong material in it will not be emptied.

You can subscribe at any point in the year, but the deadline to be certain of having your sticker before collections restarted was 13 February 2026.

Bulky waste: £33.50 for up to three items

The council collects large household items for a flat fee (City of York Council):

What you are getting rid of Charge
1 to 3 items £33.50
4 to 10 items £55.50
More than 10 items, or very large or heavy goods Assessed individually

The trap is what counts as an item. Each piece counts separately, so a bed made up of a base, a mattress and a headboard is three items, not one, which puts it at the top of the cheaper band on its own. Fridges and freezers can be taken but carry an extra charge, and bonded asbestos needs five working days’ notice.

The council will not take commercial waste, builders’ rubble, chemicals, soiled items, panes of glass, gas bottles, tyres, garden waste or fluorescent tubes. Book on 01904 551551. Collections run on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays depending on your ward, and everything has to be out before 7.00am.

When a collection is missed

Before you report anything, check the council’s waste collection updates page. It is updated Monday to Friday, usually by 5.00pm, and lists known collection issues and known missed streets from the last 10 working days. The existence of that rolling log tells you something: when we checked it in August 2026 it was carrying issues across a two week window. If your street is already on it, the council knows.

If it is not on the list, report it. The council’s guidance to households converted under Bags to Bins is to report a missed collection within 24 hours, and within 5 working days for an assisted collection (City of York Council). Report online or on 01904 551551.

The crew will not come back if (City of York Council):

  • your bin was frozen solid or its lid was frozen shut,
  • your waste was not out in a clearly visible spot by 7.00am on the right day,
  • or the crew logged a problem with your waste on their in-cab system, which can block you from reporting it at all.

The two recycling centres

York has two, and only one of them takes bookings.

Hazel Court, Eco Depot, Hazel Court, York YO10 3DS. You need an appointment to arrive by vehicle, bookable up to two weeks ahead online or on 01904 551550. Closed every Wednesday. April to September it opens 8.30am to 6.00pm Monday to Saturday and 8.30am to 4.00pm on Sunday; October to March it closes at 5.00pm Monday to Saturday, 4.00pm on Sunday. Last entry is 15 minutes before closing, there is a 1.9 metre height barrier, and pedestrians and cyclists cannot use the main site but have a separate disposal area (City of York Council).

Towthorpe, Moor Lane, Strensall, York YO32 9ST. No booking needed, but it is for York residents only, and it takes non-chargeable household waste only, so no rubble, gas bottles, plasterboard or asbestos. Closed every Wednesday, and on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. Hours are 8.30am to 6.00pm from April to September, 8.30am to 5.00pm in March and October, and 8.30am to 4.00pm from November to February. Same 1.9 metre barrier, same 15 minute last entry rule, no pedestrian access (City of York Council).

If you are north or east of the city, Towthorpe is usually the faster trip purely because you do not have to book it.

The short version

  • Black bin fortnightly, out by 7.00am, food waste included.
  • Recycling in boxes, two streams, paper and card kept separate.
  • No food caddy, and none due before 2043.
  • Garden waste £52 for 2026, £26 on Council Tax Support, 2 March to 4 December.
  • Bulky items £33.50 for one to three, and a bed counts as three.
  • Missed collection: check the updates page, then report within 24 hours.
  • Hazel Court needs an appointment. Towthorpe does not.

Also useful: our pages on parking in York, York council tax bands and roadworks and travel.

Sources

Every charge on this page was checked against the council’s own pages on 15 August 2026. Prices and collection dates change; the linked pages are the live record.