Bank holidays are collected as normal, and only Christmas stops the rounds. Plus garden waste at £51, the three-week grey bin cycle and which tip needs booking.
Warwick District Council answers the bank holiday question in one line, buried near the bottom of a page about garden waste. Here it is: collections happen as normal on every bank holiday except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. Nothing slips a day in August, or at Easter, or in May.
That is the opposite of most of England, and it is worth knowing before you leave a bin out for three weeks. Because in Leamington, Warwick, Kenilworth and Whitnash, three weeks is exactly how long you wait.
The quick answer
- Food waste: every week, in the 23 litre outdoor caddy.
- Blue-lidded recycling: every two weeks.
- Grey rubbish bin: every three weeks.
- Green garden bin: every two weeks, and only if you have paid the £51 subscription.
- Bank holidays: collected as normal. Only Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day stop the rounds.
- Bins out by 6am, and not before 7pm the night before.
- Missed bin: report it and they aim to return within 2 working days. Leave it out.
- Find your day: the council’s collection checker.
The 123+ system, and why the grey bin is three-weekly
Warwick district has run what the council calls the 123+ service since 1 August 2022. The name is the schedule:
- 1: food waste, weekly
- 2: recycling in the blue-lidded bin, fortnightly
- 3: rubbish in the grey bin, three-weekly
- +: garden waste in the green bin, fortnightly, on subscription
The three-weekly grey bin is the part people notice. The council’s reasoning is plain enough: it shares one waste contract with Stratford-on-Avon District Council covering 126,000 households, and stretching the refuse round pushes material into the recycling and food streams instead.
The practical consequence is that the food caddy matters more here than it does in a fortnightly borough. Food waste is collected every week, so nothing organic ever needs to sit in the grey bin for 21 days.
Which bin takes what
Blue-lidded bin (240 litres, fortnightly). The accepted list is unusually long, and includes several things most councils refuse:
- paper, card and cardboard
- glass bottles and jars, tins, cans, aerosols, clean foil
- plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays
- carrier bags, bread and cereal bags, salad and vegetable bags
- crisp and snack packets, coffee bags, confectionery wrappers
- cling film, bubble wrap, plastic sleeves and removable film lids
- toothpaste tubes, empty and not rolled up
- Tetra Pak cartons and non-black plastic plant pots
Batteries and small electrical items go in a bag next to any bin, on any week. Extra recycling can go beside the bin in a cardboard box or your old red box. Flatten big cardboard and leave it alongside.
Not accepted: food waste, nappies, and black bags of general rubbish.
Grey bin (three-weekly). For what cannot be recycled at the kerb. Everything must fit inside with the lid closed, because bags left beside it will not be taken. No garden waste, rubble, soil, liquids, paint, plaster, wood or tyres.
Green bin (fortnightly, subscription only). Grass, hedge clippings, leaves, prunings, cut flowers and bedding from non-meat-eating pets. Branches up to 10cm across. No soil, turf, stones, knotweed or ragwort, and no food waste.
Food caddy (weekly). All of it, including bones, raw meat, dairy and plate scrapings. Line it with newspaper, a compostable liner or any old plastic bag; the council removes the bags before processing.
If your property cannot take a grey bin, usually a town-centre flat, you get a fortnightly sack collection instead, up to two sacks, and you supply the sacks yourself.
Bank holidays and Christmas
The council states it twice, on the refuse page and the garden waste page, in the same words: collections are made as normal on all bank holidays, except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.
So Monday 31 August 2026, the summer bank holiday, is a normal collection day. Put the bin out by 6am as usual.
Christmas is the exception that does move things, and the council does not publish a district-wide list of the revised dates. It tells you to check your own address on the collection checker, which shows the changed days once they are loaded. The garden waste round also stops for a fortnight over Christmas and the New Year, and that break is built into the subscription price rather than refunded.
One more disruption worth knowing about, because it recurs every summer: in a heatwave the crews start early. In July 2026 the council moved the start of the rounds to 5am for three days and asked residents to put bins out the evening before, or by 5am at the latest, rather than the usual 6am.
Garden waste: £51, and no refunds
A green bin is only emptied if it displays a valid permit. The 2026/27 subscription runs from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027 and costs £51 per bin, with the two-week Christmas break included.
The terms are stricter than most:
- No pro rata. The charge is fixed for the year whenever you join.
- Permits take up to 10 days to arrive, and the bin will not be emptied until one is displayed. (The garden waste page says up to 14 days; the council’s own FAQ says 10.)
- £5 for a replacement permit, and £5 to transfer it if you move within the district.
- No refund if you move out of Warwick district, and none for weather suspensions.
- 14 days to cancel and get your money back, and the permit has to go back intact.
- You can have as many bins as you like, but each one needs its own £51 permit. Extra bags beside the bin are not collected.
If your green bin freezes solid in winter the crew will not return early; you wait for the next scheduled collection.
Missed collections, and the council’s own contradiction
The council gives two different answers about when to report a missed bin, on pages one click apart.
The refuse and recycling pages both say to report it “as soon as possible after 4pm on the day of collection”. The dedicated report a missed bin collection page says to report it “the next working day”.
Both agree on what happens next: leave the bin where it was, and the council aims to return within two working days. Reporting after 4pm on the day itself is the safer reading, since it cannot be too late.
One thing that is not covered: if you simply forgot to put the bin out, the crew will not come back. With a three-week cycle, that is a long wait.
Bulky items, and the fridge problem
Warwick District Council collects large household items for a fixed charge, with a reduced rate for senior citizens, people on income support or a state pension addition, and registered disabled residents.
| Items | Standard | Reduced rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1 item | £30 | £20 |
| 2 items | £40 | £30 |
| 3 items | £55 | £40 |
| 4 items | £60 | £50 |
| 5 items | £75 | £60 |
Bookings are non-refundable, items must be outside by 6am, and nothing is collected from inside the property.
Fridges and freezers cannot be got rid of at all at the moment. The district council has suspended kerbside collection of them, and Warwickshire County Council has suspended acceptance at every recycling centre in the county, for residents and businesses alike. The reason given is a national shortage of fridge recycling capacity. Neither council has published an end date. Retailer takeback on delivery of a replacement is the remaining route.
The two tips: one needs booking, one shuts on bank holidays
Warwick district has two of Warwickshire’s nine household waste recycling centres, and they now work differently from each other.
Princes Drive, Leamington Spa, CV31 3PH. Since the county introduced a hybrid booking system on Monday 20 July 2026, this site needs a booked slot at weekends, through Eventbrite. Weekdays are still turn up and go. A 1.98m height barrier is in place. Cyclists bringing waste never need to book.
Cherry Orchard, Pipers Lane, Kenilworth, CV8 2SS. No booking, ever. But its page carries a line Princes Drive’s does not: the site is closed on all bank holidays.
So on Monday 31 August 2026 the Kenilworth tip is shut, while the Leamington one lists no bank holiday closure at all and takes no booking on a weekday. Princes Drive’s only stated closures are Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, plus a 12.30pm finish on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
Opening hours are otherwise identical at both:
| Day | Summer, 1 Apr to 30 Sep | Winter, 1 Oct to 31 Mar |
|---|---|---|
| Monday to Tuesday | 9.30am to 3.15pm | 9.30am to 3.15pm |
| Wednesday | 9.30am to 6.15pm | 9.30am to 3.15pm |
| Thursday to Friday | 9.30am to 3.15pm | 9.30am to 3.15pm |
| Saturday and Sunday | 8.30am to 5.45pm | 8.30am to 4.15pm |
Vans, pick-ups, trailers and large 4x4s need a voucher at both sites, and business waste is chargeable.
What changes in 2028
The Government has decided that Warwickshire’s six councils will be replaced by two unitary authorities, with Warwick district joining Stratford-on-Avon in a southern one. The county’s own timetable puts shadow elections in April or May 2027 and vesting day in April 2028.
For bins that is less disruptive than it sounds, because the collection contract is already shared with Stratford-on-Avon and already runs the same 123+ schedule across both districts.
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