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Gateshead bin collection dates
- Add your dates to Google, Apple or Outlook calendar
- Get an email the evening before
- Print an A4 sheet for the fridge
Bins in Gateshead
These are the containers used in Gateshead. Which ones a home has depends on its address.
Recycling
Blue recycling bin
Container details
The container pictures and words are Gateshead Borough Council's own. This may not be every container it uses.
Greyed-out bin icons are placeholders where the container type or colour is not confirmed.
- Recycling: Homes using an individual recycling bin
Container descriptions checked 18 September 2026; list of collections built from Gateshead Borough Council's own service names 22 September 2026.
Order, book and apply
- Items accepted for bulky waste collectionGateshead Borough Council
- Garden waste collectionsGateshead Borough Council
- Get rid of a bulky itemGateshead Borough Council
- Get help putting your bins outGateshead Borough Council
Links checked 17 September 2026.
Missed bin or a problem
Tell Gateshead Borough Council first - it can only fix what it knows about.
Missed-bin guidance checked 20 September 2026.
- Report a missed binA bin that wasn't emptied on the day.
- Report another bin collection problemAnything else about the collection or your bins.
- Make a complaint to Gateshead Borough CouncilIf reporting it didn't fix it.
Complaint didn't work either? Ask your councillors
If you've already reported the problem and used the council's complaints process, your metropolitan district councillors can take up a repeated problem or a wider service failure. Find and write to my metropolitan district councillors on Gateshead Borough Council.
WriteToThem is an independent mySociety service. You'll enter your postcode there before choosing who to contact.
Complaint routes verified 7 September 2026.
How Gateshead compares
- Recycled or composted
- 31%of household waste, 2024 to 2025
- Rubbish not recycled
- 599 kgper household a year
- Cost of collections
- £76per household a year. Similar councils: £73
- Value for money
- 4 out of 10 An independently constructed WhenIsBins rating, not an official government rating.
Official figures for England, 2024 to 2025.
Local bins and recycling news
AI-generated summary, reviewed before publication. Checked 18 September 2026.
Gateshead residents will not get separate weekly food waste collections for several years. Under national "Simpler Recycling" rules, most councils must offer this from April 2026, but Gateshead, alongside South Tyneside and Sunderland, has a transitional arrangement lasting until April 2039 because of long-term waste contracts (BBC, September 2025). A South Tyneside councillor called this "totally devastated" news, arguing residents are missing out on environmental benefits; the partnership says changing contracts early would cost tens of millions and waste already goes to energy-from-waste plants.
Since late 2024 Gateshead has been checking bins for contamination and refusing to empty those with wrong items, tagging them instead, following contamination rates exceeding 20%.
- Residents face 'frustrating' food waste collection delays — www.bbc.com
- Gateshead to stop collecting some bins due to contamination — www.letsrecycle.com
- Future Recycling Collections & Fleet Proposals - Cabinet Report — gateshead.moderngov.co.uk