Sheffield City Council are responsible for providing refuse collection for Sheffield. The council have contracted out their services to Veolia, a waste management company tasked with recycling as much of the city’s rubbish as possible.
Sheffield bin collection is provided to all homes in the city by Veolia, offering general household waste (black bin), paper and card (blue bin), mixed glass, metal and plastics (brown bin) and an additional garden waste (green bin) collection service. Collections run on a 4 week cycle, with general waste collections in weeks one and three and recyclable waste bins emptied in weeks two and four.
Collection Times
As a rule of thumb, bin collections start at 7am and run through to 6pm. However, from time to time lorries get held up, crews are delayed unexpectedly or events like road closures interfere with collections. For that reason, it’s possible that the 6pm finish will overrun, so leave your bin out until it’s been emptied or you’re notified otherwise.
While you might get a similar collection time each week, be sure to get your bin out by 7am, as they do vary, so it’s possible you might find yours is emptied really in the early in the round one week, even though you’re normally late in the day.
If necessary, put your bin out as late as possible on the night before the collection, although until recently the advice was that bins shouldn’t be on the street before 6pm on the evening prior to collection day.
Where To Leave Your Bin
Wheelie bins should be placed at the roadside, directly outside of your property wherever possible. In locations where that isn’t practical, or in areas where the bin lorries will not pass (for example private roads), bins should be left in a prominent position where they can been seen by staff as they pass on the collection route.
You should never obstruct a pavement by making it impossible to pass with your bin, give particular thought to members of the public passing by with children in buggies or people in wheelchairs or travelling on mobility scooters.
Bin Collection Dates
We all lose track of bin collection dates from time to time, and in my case, it’s usually at the same time as I’ve misplaced my bin collection calendar. While the council and Veolia send bin day calendars to every household in Sheffield each year, that’s not a great deal of help if you can’t find it.
Fortunately, for most collections, the day stays the same every week. The notable exception is garden waste collections which can be (but aren’t always) on a different weekday. For the black, blue and brown bins, the vast majority of Sheffield residents will have the same collection day every week. If you start with the blue bin collections, the pattern is:
| Week | Bin Colour | Bin Contents |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blue | Paper & Card |
| 2 | Black | General Waste |
| 3 | Brown | Plastic, Glass & Metal |
| 4 | Black | General Waste |
If you’re not sure where you are in the cycle, you can head over to the calendar checker tool and add your address. You’ll be able to see immediately which collection is next, if your round is in progress, and something a lot of people don’t know about – whether they’re yet to get to you. That last bit is great if you’re out and about, have forgotten to put the bin out and are wondering if it’s worth nipping home to do it.
Getting A Replacement Bin Calendar
If you like to have a paper copy of your calendar and have lost the original, there’s an easy solution. You just need to use the tool we just talked about and download a PDF copy. That’s easy to open and print if you’ve got a printer available at home.
Similarly, you can save the PDF file to your computer, phone or tablet (like an iPad or Kindle) to reference whenever you need it. The online checker can be a bit slow at times, so keeping a downloaded copy handy is a good idea.
What Goes In Each Bin?
Knowing what goes in your bins should be easy, but I don’t think I’m the only one that wonders from time to time, especially with the brown recycle bin for plastics, metal and glass. Equally important is what does not go in your general waste and recycle bins.
Let’s go through them one by one to cover the most common items.
Blue Bin
Let’s start with the easy one. The 140 litre blue bin is for paper and card and is collected once a month. Wet and greasy paper and card should not be put in the blue bin, so put it into the black general waste bin instead.
Examples of what shouldn’t be in your blue bin include takeaway wrapping such as fatty fish and chip packaging and dirty pizza boxes. Also, as a a side note from someone who has seen it too often, nappies aren’t pure paper or card, whether used or not!
Remember that boxes are really easy to flatten, and flat boxes fit much better inside your bin. It’s not a requirement, but if you frequently fill your blue bin, collapsing all of your cardboard before it goes into the blue wheelie bin will mean you can fit a lot more in. Remember that for all bins, the lid must be fully closed for collection.
Shredding is fine to go in with your paper and card, so once you’ve destroyed all those sensitive documents like bank statements and other items with personal information on, the shredded paper can be recycled by tipping it into your blue bin.
If you’re still struggling, you can leave additional cardboard and paper out for collection next to your main blue bin, but it must be secured. String is perfect to do the job, but don’t use plastic bags as the crews don’t have time to empty them out or have anywhere to dispose of them.
Brown Bin
Alongside the blue bins are the brown bins, collectively forming Sheffield’s standard recycling collections service.
It’s the 240 litre brown bins that cause the most confusion with what they can and can’t contain, so let’s have a go at clearing up the mess (pardon the terrible joke).
Broadly, it’s tin cans, plastic bottles and intact glass bottles and jars that go into your brown recycling wheelie bin.
The key part is the plastics being bottles only. Tops on bottles can be recycled. The following items should not be placed into your brown bin, and can go into your black bin, or better still be recycled at one of the city’s household waste recycling centres (HWRCs):
- Pots (including yoghurt pots)
- Tubs (including ice cream tubs and margarine tubs)
- Pumps (the pump should be unscrewed from a bottle where possible, but the bottle itself can go in the brown bin once the pump is removed. Trigger style spray tops are fine to go into the brown bin.)
- Food trays (including fruit packaging trays and whole chicken packaging trays)
Remember, just because food packaging states that it is 100% recyclable, it doesn’t always mean it can be recycled in your brown bin. Sometimes it will say it’s suitable for kerbside recycling, which is a better but still not perfect indicator.
Black Bin
A lot of people consider the 240 litre black bin to be everything else. Unfortunately that’s not quite true. While most other non recyclable waste can go in your black bin, there are many examples of things that shouldn’t be placed in there for your fortnightly collection.
Here’s a run down of the most common types of waste that cannot be taken at the roadside in your black bin:
- Hazardous waste (asbestos, biohazards – contact the council’s waste management department at Howden House on Union Street in Sheffield for guidance, call 0114 273 4567)
- Batteries (these can cause fires in rubbish trucks)
- Paper and card (put it in your blue recycle bin)
- Building materials (bricks, rubble, tiles – take them to a Household Waste Recycling Centre)
- Business waste (collections are for household waste only)
- Hot items (allow them to cool before they go in the bin – e.g. barbecue ashes)
- Glass, plastic bottles, tins (put them in your brown recycle bin)
- Garden waste (use the garden collection service or take it bagged to the nearest HWRC)
Green Bin
This is an optional service available across Sheffield for an additional fee. The council allow you to sign up for one or two years at a time, and households subscribing will receive approximately 19 collections per year between March and November. In recent years the total number of collections has increased as popularity has grown. You can find the details here.
You can join the service part way through the year, with the service in 2023 costing £61.10 for a full year. The price usually decreases periodically throughout the year to reflect the lower number of remaining collections. You’ll also need to buy a green bin if you don’t already have one. The cost is £32 including delivery (last checked in August 2023).
When you join, you’ll receive a sticker to put on your green bin before the first collection day. The sticker needs to be placed on the front of your bin, and shows that you have made payment for the current year’s collections. Make sure that it’s clearly visible when you put your bin out, and it either covers the previous year’s sticker, or old ones are removed first.
As I mentioned earlier, the collection day may differ from your other collections, but still occurs between 7am and 6pm.
As for what can go into your green bin, the main items are:
- Grass cuttings
- Hedge trimmings
- Plant clippings
- Twigs
- Tree bark
- Weeds
- Small tree branches
Conversely, the follow must not be put into a green bin for collection:
- Large branches
- Stones
- Rubble
- Knotweed
- Plastic bags (don’t wrap the garden waste – place it directly into the bin)
- Pond waste
- Mulched grass
- Rotting garden waste
- Business waste
- Anything that goes into the other bins
Sheffield’s green bin collections are recycled, by creating compost. This is sold commercially and used by the council itself.
How To Get A Replacement Wheelie Bin
In days gone by, if your bin got lost, damaged or stolen, you’d be able to get a free replacement by calling the council. Now though, it’s a chargeable service to have some new bins delivered.
It’s undoubtedly annoying to have to pay for a new one, especially if someone has taken your bin or damaged it. Fortunately, my blue box was the one that most frequently got blown into the road and demolished by finding itself in the path of an oncoming vehicle, and they’ve now been superseded by brown bins instead.
The standard service recycle bins are free to get a replacement, so here’s the current costs at the time of writing (last checked in July 2022).
| Bin Colour | Waste Type | Replacement Cost (at 08/23) |
|---|---|---|
| Black | General Waste | £32 |
| Blue | Paper & Card | Free |
| Brown | Plastic, Glass & Metal | Free |
| Green | Garden Waste | £32 |
If you need to order a replacement bin, you can start the process here.
Can I Get A Larger Bin?
Some households are able to receive a larger black bin for general waste, however the applications are judged on a per case basis. The general criteria is that larger households will qualify, which is likely to include homes with six or more people. However, it is likely that an analysis of waste will be needed to ensure that a black bin is required, as the council are rightly pushing for the maximum possible amount of waste to be recycled.
Remember that you can leave additional paper and card waste next to your blue bin if it is full, but the other waste collections must be made with a bin with the lid fully closed.
How To Report A Missed Collection
If your bin has not been collected by the end of the normal collection day, you should follow these steps:
- Check your bin is out and has been since before 7am.
- Check the bin to see if a sticker or tag has been left to explain why it has not been emptied.
- Check the Veolia updates page for any service interruptions.
- Check the collection day tool online to see if any notes have been made
- If you’re still unclear why your bin has not been emptied, report a missed collection.
