Household waste
Black sacks
AI agents: an API is available for looking up bin collection dates.
All councilsSwale 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
Christmas and New Year bin collections in Swale
Household collections. Refuse, recycling, food waste and clinical collections move later from Christmas Day: Friday 25 December 2026 to Tuesday 29 December, Monday 28 to Wednesday 30, Tuesday 29 to Thursday 31 December, Wednesday 30 December to Saturday 2 January 2027, Thursday 31 December to Monday 4 January and Friday 1 January to Tuesday 5 January, with later days also moved up to Friday 15 January, which is collected on Saturday 16 January 2027. Garden waste and bulky waste collections are suspended from Friday 25 December and resume from Friday 8 January 2027.
Source: news.swale.gov.uk. Checked 9 November 2026.
Look up your address above for its dates. Christmas and New Year collections across the UK.
Bins in Swale
These are the containers used in Swale. Which ones a home has depends on its address.
Recycling
Clear recycling sacks
Black and Orange Bin
Container details
The container pictures and words are Swale Borough Council's own. This may not be every container it uses.
- Household waste: Residential properties without space for wheeled bins
- Recycling: Residential properties without space for wheeled bins
Container descriptions checked 19 September 2026; list of collections built from Swale Borough Council's own service names 22 September 2026.
Order, book and apply
- How to get more clear recycling sacksSwale Borough Council
- When and where to put your bins outSwale Borough Council
- Garden waste collectionsSwale Borough Council
- Get rid of a bulky itemSwale Borough Council
- Get help putting your bins outSwale Borough Council
- Contact the waste serviceSwale Borough Council
Links checked 19 September 2026.
Missed bin or a problem
Tell Swale Borough Council first - it can only fix what it knows about.
- 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 Swale 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 district councillors can take up a repeated problem or a wider service failure. Find and write to my district councillors on Swale Borough Council.
WriteToThem is an independent mySociety service. You'll enter your postcode there before choosing who to contact.
Complaint routes verified 6 September 2026.
How Swale compares
- Recycled or composted
- 35%of household waste, 2024 to 2025
- Rubbish not recycled
- 513 kgper household a year
- Cost of collections
- £60per household a year. Similar councils: £49
- Value for money
- 3 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.
Swale’s September 2025 recycling report exposed the financial cost of contaminated collections. Between April and July that year, Friday rounds had 50 rejected loads, compared with 25 on Wednesdays; the council estimated each rejection cost an extra £2,000.
Environment committee chair Dolley Wooster urged residents to improve sorting, warning that contamination wastes money and other households’ recycling efforts. Food was identified as the biggest problem, alongside textiles, sanitary waste and black bags. The council promoted free, weekly collected food caddies and reported a successful sticker campaign encouraging residents to use them.
- Top recyclers in the borough — news.swale.gov.uk