Tunbridge Wells collects on every bank holiday except Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year's Day. Find your bin day, the 7am rule, garden waste £70, bulky £70.

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council splits its bin information across a dozen separate pages, and the single most useful fact on any of them is buried on the one about textiles and batteries. This page puts the whole thing in one place: which container takes what, the rule that decides whether a missed bin is your problem or theirs, what garden waste and bulky collections actually cost this year, and what happens at a bank holiday.

The quick answer

Food waste is collected weekly. Everything else runs on alternating fortnights: the brown recycling bin and green box one week, the green refuse bin the next. Put every container out by 7am. The council collects on every bank holiday except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. Garden waste is an opt-in subscription at £70 a year. A bulky collection is £70 for up to four items, or £10 if you are on the right council tax reduction band. Check your own day with the council’s collection day checker.

Which bin takes what

Five containers, and the colours catch people out. The green bin is rubbish. The green box is paper and card. They are not the same thing and they do not go out on the same week.

Household containers in Tunbridge Wells borough and what goes in each
ContainerFrequencyWhat goes in
Food waste bin (kitchen caddy plus outside bin)Weekly, on both recycling and refuse weeksCooked and raw food, meat, fish, bones, dairy, bread, rice, pasta, fruit, vegetables, eggshells, tea bags, coffee grounds, leftover pet food
Brown recycling binFortnightly, alternating with refuseGlass bottles and jars of any colour, plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays (not black), cans, food tins, foil, empty aerosols, Tetra Pak cartons
Green boxFortnightly, same week as the brown binPaper and cardboard only: newspapers, magazines, envelopes, greetings cards, non-metallic gift wrap, flattened boxes
Green refuse binFortnightly, alternating with recyclingHousehold rubbish that cannot be recycled: cling film, crisp packets, black plastic trays, nappies, bagged pet waste, polystyrene
Black garden waste binFortnightly, subscription onlyGrass, plants, hedge trimmings, leaves, windfall fruit, branches up to 5cm across, real Christmas trees

Sources: the council’s pages on the food waste bin, the recycling bin, the green box, the refuse bin and the garden waste bin.

Two rules on the refuse bin are worth knowing. The council empties one refuse bin per property, whatever else you have. And a green bin with grass, leaves or prunings in it will not be emptied at all, because garden waste counts as contamination.

The extras, and which week they go out

The council also takes three things that do not live in any bin. Each has its own week, and getting it wrong means it is left behind.

  • Textiles go out on your refuse week, in a small carrier-bag-sized amount beside the green bin. Worn or stained is fine. No pillows or duvets, and not in a black sack or a charity bag.
  • Small electricals also go out on your refuse week, in a small carrier bag beside the green bin. Kettles, toasters, hairdryers, leads and chargers. Nothing microwave-sized or bigger.
  • Household batteries go out on your recycling week, in a small bag placed on top of the brown bin. Not vape batteries, not car batteries.

Do not mix the three in one bag, and the council will only take one small bag of each type per house, because space on the collection vehicle is limited. (Additional items)

If you live in a flat, the colours flip

Communal bins are labelled with stickers, and the sticker colours do not match the kerbside colours at all:

  • green sticker: glass, plastic and tins, the equivalent of the brown bin
  • blue sticker: paper and cardboard, the equivalent of the green box
  • yellow sticker: refuse, the equivalent of the green bin
  • black and orange container: food waste

So a green label on a communal bin means recycling, while a green bin at a kerbside means rubbish. (Communal bins)

Finding your bin day, and the one address the checker cannot answer

The council does not publish a round map or a street list, so the collection day checker is the only way to get your own day. It runs on the council’s own portal at mytwbc.tunbridgewells.gov.uk, takes a full address rather than a postcode alone, and returns every service at that property in one go, refuse, recycling, food and garden waste together.

If you have just moved into a new build, the checker will show you nothing, and that is not a fault. The council states the sequence plainly: bin collection information exists only for properties already registered for Council Tax in the borough. So a new or recently completed home has to be registered with the Council Tax team, with the occupation date confirmed, and added to the system, before any collection is set up at all. Until that is done there is no bin day to look up and no collections will be made.

That is worth knowing before you spend a fortnight reporting missed bins that were never scheduled. The fix is a call to Council Tax, not to the waste team.

The council also offers a weekly email personalised to your address that includes your bin collections, mentioned in the FAQ block on its bin collections update page. Be aware that the same page keeps archived notices from previous winters below the live line, so treat anything there without a current date with caution.

Bank holidays and Christmas

This is the fact worth bookmarking, and the council states it in one line on a page about batteries rather than anywhere obvious:

We collect on all bank holidays except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.

That means Easter Monday, both May bank holidays and the August bank holiday are all normal collection days in this borough. Nothing shifts. Many neighbouring Kent councils move every round a day later after a bank holiday, so if you have moved here from one of them, the habit is wrong. (Additional items)

Only the Christmas and New Year period changes the timetable, and the council publishes a revised run for it. Garden waste is the exception: subscription collections are not suspended over Christmas, and the council says it aims to keep them going all year. (Garden waste questions)

Real Christmas trees are taken with the garden waste round, left beside the black bin, as long as the trunk is under 7.5cm thick and the decorations and pot are off.

Changes and delays are posted on the council’s bin collections update page. Read it carefully: the live line at the top says whether there are current delays, but older entries from previous winters are still sitting underneath it, so check the date on anything you read there. When we looked again on 20 September 2026 the live line still said there were no reported delays or changes, while the text underneath it was still describing a garden waste suspension and a Christmas timetable from a previous year. Read the top line, ignore what sits below it unless it carries a date you recognise.

Missed collection: the two-day rule

The council sets out five reasons it will not come back for a bin. Four of them are about how you presented it, and the fifth is a deadline:

  • the bin contained something it should not have
  • it was not in the right place for collection
  • it was too heavy or damaged
  • it was not put out by 7am on your collection day
  • it was not reported within two days of the scheduled collection

Crews work until 5pm, so a bin that is still out at lunchtime has not necessarily been missed. (Report a missed bin)

If a bin is damaged the council will try to repair it before replacing it, and it does not replace bins for being dirty. If you move into a property where the bins have gone, you have to buy replacements: the council only supplies them free where they were never provided, and for new builds and rentals the developer or landlord is meant to supply them. (Order new or replacement bins)

An assisted collection, where the crew fetches the containers from an agreed spot and puts them back, is available if nobody in the household can manage it for health or mobility reasons. It can be arranged temporarily as well as permanently. (Assisted collections)

Garden waste: £70 a year

Garden waste is opt-in and chargeable. The price rose this year:

  • £66 for subscriptions starting or renewing before 1 April 2026
  • £70 for subscriptions starting or renewing on or after 1 April 2026

The price is per container, and you can have up to three per property. It is the same £70 whether you take the 240-litre black bin, the smaller 140-litre bin, or three 90-litre hessian sacks for properties with nowhere to keep a wheelie bin. There are no concessions, whatever your circumstances, and no monthly or quarterly payment: it is paid in full up front, by card or annual Direct Debit. (Garden waste sign up, garden waste questions)

Some details that matter:

  • The subscription buys 26 collections a year, fortnightly.
  • Sign up on or before the 14th of a month and the service starts on the first Monday of the following month.
  • You do not own the bin. It stays the council’s property.
  • Sharing a bin with a neighbour is allowed as an informal arrangement, but one household pays and the bin is registered to one address.
  • Move within the borough and the service moves with you. Move out of the borough and it is cancelled with no refund.
  • To set up a Direct Debit or tell the council you are moving, call 01892 554426.

Bulky waste: £70, or £10 if you qualify

A bulky collection slot costs £70 and covers up to four items. Only one fridge, freezer or fridge freezer is allowed per booking.

An affordable collection costs a £10 processing charge, once every 90 days. You qualify if you are of working age and on Band 1 of the council tax reduction scheme, or of non-working age and on any band of it. You need your National Insurance number and benefit reference number to book. A second collection inside the same 90 days is charged at the full rate. (Book a bulky collection)

Fridges and freezers cannot be booked at all at the moment. The council has suspended those collections because of a national shortage of treatment capacity for waste cooling appliances. Kent County Council asked residents on 24 July 2026 to delay disposing of fridges and freezers where they safely can, after a number of specialist treatment sites were taken out of operation following fires and other problems. There is no published date for the restriction ending. (Kent County Council, 24 July 2026)

Note the gap this leaves. The borough council will not collect a fridge, but the county’s tip at North Farm is still accepting them, so taking it yourself is currently the only route.

The rules that cost people their money are on the bulky waste FAQ, and there are no refunds in any of these cases:

  • items must be out at the front of the property, by the kerb, before 7am
  • each item must be liftable by two people
  • anything made of glass, or containing broken glass, is refused, and the whole booking can be rejected with it
  • heavily soiled items must be covered, or they are left
  • rain-soaked soft furnishings may be too heavy to take
  • fridges and freezers must be emptied of food

To cancel or change a date, call 01892 526121 at least two working days ahead. Refunds are only given if you cancel with two working days’ notice, and once a booking is made you cannot swap the items on it.

The council will not take car parts, mirrors or window units, greenhouses, pianos in any form, glazed furniture, hazardous waste or commercial waste.

The tip at North Farm

The borough’s household waste recycling centre is run by Kent County Council, not by Tunbridge Wells.

  • Address: North Farm Lane, Royal Tunbridge Wells, TN2 3EE. The public entrance is on North Farm Lane.
  • Opening: Monday to Saturday 8am to 4.30pm, Sunday and bank holidays 9am to 4pm.
  • Closed: Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.
  • Booking is compulsory. Entry without a booked slot is not permitted.
  • Height barrier: 2 metres.
  • You cannot carry waste in on foot, and you must keep children in the car.
  • Residents who do not pay council tax to a Kent council, including Medway, pay £10 per visit.

(Tunbridge Wells Borough Council; Kent County Council)

The two councils disagree on the booking window. The borough council’s page says you can book up to a month ahead. Kent’s own booking page says up to two weeks. Kent runs the system, so treat two weeks as the real limit. Kent also says there is no cap on how many times you can visit in a day. (Kent County Council, visiting a HWRC)

DIY waste is where the tip charges. The free allowance is four visits in four weeks, and one large item or two standard black bags per visit. Over that:

  • DIY waste: £5 per item or bag
  • Plasterboard: £7.50 per sheet or bag, and one sheet counts as one bag
  • Tyres: £3 each, up to five a day, with no free allowance at all

(Kent County Council, charges at HWRCs)

Also on this site

Sources