South Hams Council Bin Days & Collection Schedule 2026 Guide

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South Hams · September 2026 resident guide

South Hams Council Bin Days & Collection Schedule 2026

South Hams does not use one simple “recycling bin” system. Household recycling is sorted at the kerb into two boxes, a reusable white sack and a food caddy, while general refuse is normally collected every other week using either a 180-litre wheelie bin or a seagull sack.

This guide explains exactly how that system works in 2026: how to check your property-level collection date, where paper, glass, cardboard, cartons, plastics, cans, batteries and food belong, how missed collections are investigated, how the £73 garden-waste subscription works, and what changes for holiday lets, bulky waste, healthcare waste and Devon recycling centres.

Check My Official Bin Day See What Goes Where Solve a Missed Collection

South Hams Bin Day: The Fast Answer

Enter your postcode and choose your exact address on the council’s live collection checker. South Hams covers rural villages, coastal communities, narrow lanes and larger towns, so the date for a neighbouring road is not a reliable substitute for your own property record.

Recycling Every week
Food waste Every week
Refuse Every other week
Garden Fortnightly
Garden fee £73
Missed report Within 2 working days
2026 timing tip: older South Hams calendar material commonly says 7am, but the current collection checker warns that crews can arrive before 7am during peak periods. The current garden-waste page explicitly says brown bins should be out by 6am. For household recycling/refuse, putting containers out the evening before is the safest way to avoid an unexpectedly early summer collection.

How to Find Your Exact South Hams Collection Day

South Hams District Council’s live waste portal is more useful than a static list of towns because the service is attached to an exact property.

1

Enter the postcode

Open the official South Hams collection lookup and type the postcode for the household.

2

Find the address

Select the exact house, flat or named property from the address list.

3

Read every service

Check recycling, food, refuse and subscribed garden waste separately rather than assuming every service shares a day.

4

Recheck around holidays

Bank holidays and the festive period can temporarily alter the normal weekday.

Open Official South Hams Collection Checker
Do not rely on an old PDF after its end date. Search engines can still surface South Hams calendars covering April 2025 to March 2026. For a September 2026 collection, use the current property-level lookup rather than extending an old pattern yourself.

South Hams Household Collection System in 2026

The district now uses the aligned kerbside recycling service across its properties, separating materials into multiple containers so they can remain cleaner and easier to process.

Container / service Main purpose Normal frequency Important local detail
Recycling Box 1 Mixed paper + glass bottles and jars Weekly Keep materials separated within the box.
Recycling Box 2 Cardboard, cartons, plus bagged batteries and printer cartridges Weekly Cardboard must fit inside the box.
Reusable white sack Accepted plastic and metal packaging Weekly Rinse packaging; no black plastic.
Kerbside food caddy Cooked and uncooked household food waste Weekly Separate from normal refuse.
180L refuse bin / seagull sack Non-recyclable household rubbish Fortnightly Property type determines the normal container.
180L brown garden bin Subscribed garden vegetation Fortnightly Can be on a different day from household waste/recycling.

Weekly Recycling + Food, Fortnightly Refuse

Week A
Recycling Box 1 Recycling Box 2 White recycling sack Food caddy Refuse if due
Week B
Recycling Box 1 Recycling Box 2 White recycling sack Food caddy
The useful mental model: put recycling and food out every normal collection week. The residual refuse container joins them every other week. A garden subscriber should check a separate date because the brown bin can be collected on another weekday entirely.

South Hams Containers: What You Should Have

Recycling Box 1

Mixed household paper plus glass bottles and jars.

Weekly Paper + glass

Recycling Box 2

Cardboard and cartons, plus small separately bagged batteries and printer cartridges.

Weekly Card + cartons

Reusable White Sack

Household plastic packaging and metal packaging such as bottles, pots, tubs, trays, tins, cans and foil.

Weekly Plastic + metal

Food-Waste Caddy

Cooked and uncooked food waste collected separately every week.

Weekly Kerbside caddy

Refuse Bin / Seagull Sack

Non-recyclable domestic household rubbish that cannot use the recycling, food or specialist collection routes.

Usually fortnightly 180L bin or sack

Brown Garden Bin

Optional paid 180-litre garden-waste service with a current post-April 2026 subscription price of £73.

Fortnightly Subscription

South Hams Recycling Sorting Cheat Sheet

Item Correct container Local preparation rule
Newspapers, magazines, letters, envelopes Recycling Box 1 Keep separate from the glass in the same box.
Glass bottles and jars Recycling Box 1 No broken glass. Metal lids go in the white sack.
Cardboard Recycling Box 2 Flatten as necessary; it must fit inside the box.
Juice / drinks cartons Recycling Box 2 Empty before presentation.
Household batteries Recycling Box 2 Put in a separate small bag.
Printer cartridges Recycling Box 2 Put in a separate small bag.
Plastic bottles, pots, tubs, trays Reusable white sack Empty and rinse. No black plastic.
Tins, cans, foil, empty aerosols Reusable white sack Empty and rinse where needed.
Cooked / uncooked food Food caddy Use the separate weekly food service.
Do not mix everything together. South Hams uses source-separated kerbside recycling. A generic national “all recycling loose in one bin” instruction does not describe this service correctly.

Recycling Box 1: Paper + Glass

Paper

  • Newspapers
  • Magazines and brochures
  • Letters and white paper
  • Junk mail
  • Suitable envelopes without plastic contents
  • Other clean mixed paper

Glass

  • Wine and beer bottles
  • Sauce and oil bottles
  • Jam and food jars
  • Cosmetic bottles and jars
  • Other suitable household bottles and jars
Sorting technique: South Hams asks residents to keep the two materials distinct inside Box 1. The traditional guidance is paper at one end / underneath and intact glass bottles and jars at the other/top so operatives can easily separate them into vehicle compartments.
No broken glass. Broken glass creates a manual-handling risk for collection crews and should not be put loose into the kerbside recycling box.

Recycling Box 2: Cardboard, Cartons, Batteries & Cartridges

Cardboard

Flatten cardboard where necessary so that it fits inside the recycling box rather than creating an unstable pile at the kerbside.

Cartons

Drinks and juice cartons belong in Box 2 rather than the plastics-and-metals white sack.

Small specialist items

Household batteries and printer cartridges can use Box 2 when contained separately in a small bag.

Cardboard must fit inside the box. Do not assume that a large stack beside the container will automatically be accepted simply because the material itself is recyclable.

Reusable White Sack: Plastic + Metal Packaging

Plastic packaging

  • Drinks bottles
  • Milk bottles
  • Cleaning-product bottles
  • Detergent and soap bottles
  • Skin-care bottles
  • Yoghurt and food pots
  • Margarine / ice-cream tubs
  • Food trays and punnets
  • Suitable non-black plant pots

Metal packaging

  • Drinks cans
  • Food tins
  • Biscuit / chocolate tins
  • Empty aerosols
  • Clean aluminium foil
  • Clean foil trays
  • Aluminium food tubes
  • Metal lids from bottles and jars
Rinse first: empty packaging and rinse off food residue before putting it into the reusable white sack. Labels can generally stay attached.
No black plastic, plastic film or carrier bags. Film lids, absorbent food pads and other excluded flexible plastics should not be mixed into the white recycling sack.

Weekly South Hams Food-Waste Collection

Contrary to some third-party bin-day pages, South Hams properties can have a kerbside food-waste caddy and the household collection is part of the district’s weekly recycling service.

Use the food caddy for

  • Cooked food
  • Uncooked food
  • Fruit and vegetable peelings
  • Meat and fish
  • Plate scrapings
  • Bread and bakery waste
  • Other normal household food scraps

Kitchen-caddy liners

South Hams guidance allows residents to use bags to line their food caddy, including suitable reused household food bags.

The smaller indoor caddy is for kitchen convenience. The kerbside caddy is the container presented for collection.

Replacement kitchen caddy: the council currently lists a 7-litre internal kitchen food-waste caddy at £7. The normal kerbside recycling-container set includes the outdoor food caddy.

General Refuse: 180L Wheelie Bin or Seagull Sack

The normal residual collection is for domestic household material left after making full use of weekly recycling and food waste.

180L wheelie-bin property

A standard household with suitable storage/access can be allocated a 180-litre refuse wheelie bin.

Keep residual rubbish contained inside the bin with its lid properly closed rather than leaving loose side waste.

Seagull-sack property

Some homes unsuitable for a normal wheelie bin use a reusable protective seagull sack to contain their household refuse.

The exact arrangement is property-specific, so the fact that a neighbouring household has a wheelie bin does not necessarily mean yours should.

DIY waste is not ordinary refuse. Rubble, plasterboard, timber, tiles and similar renovation material should use the appropriate recycling-centre / chargeable-waste route rather than the normal domestic residual collection.

Why Some South Hams Homes Use Seagull Sacks

The reusable protective sack is particularly relevant in dense coastal settlements and properties where a wheelie bin is not a practical container.

Animal protection

The outer sack helps protect ordinary refuse bags from birds and animals before the crew reaches the property.

Space-sensitive

It provides an alternative for households where normal wheelie bin storage or access is unsuitable.

Keep recycling separate

Recycling boxes, the white recycling sack and food caddy remain separate collection containers.

South Hams coastal tip: clearly mark reusable containers with the house name or number. That is particularly useful on terraces and narrow streets where multiple boxes and sacks are placed together.

What Time Should South Hams Waste Be Put Out?

Do not wait for your usual lorry time

South Hams warns that during peak seasons some rounds can take place before 7am.

Use your normal collection point

Make the boxes, sacks, caddy or bin clearly available to the crew at the normal agreed presentation point.

Garden waste: 6am

The live 2026/27 garden-waste subscription page explicitly instructs subscribers to present the brown bin by 6am.

Best practical routine: sort the recycling indoors, place lids securely on the boxes and put all household containers at the collection point the evening before. This avoids a summer crew arriving earlier than expected.

South Hams Missed Collection: The Two-Working-Day Rule

Do not report on collection day

South Hams does not accept a missed-collection report until the day after the collection was due.

This gives the crew the full working day to complete the round or log why the property could not be collected.

Do not wait too long either

The report must normally be submitted within two working days of the scheduled collection.

A missed Friday collection must be reported before the end of Monday.

Collection evidence: the council can compare your report with crew records made when the collection was due. Some collection vehicles also provide photographs and CCTV to help determine why a container was not emptied.
A logged reason is not the same as a contractor miss. If the crew records contamination, inaccessible presentation, excessive weight or another collection problem, fix that issue rather than assuming an automatic return.

South Hams Missed-Collection Helper

Choose what happened before submitting a missed-collection form.

Select the situation that best matches your collection.

Missing or Replacement South Hams Containers

Standard kerbside recycling set

Properties can have two recycling boxes, one reusable white plastic recycling sack and a kerbside food caddy.

Refuse container

Each property has either an appropriate 180-litre refuse wheelie bin or the property’s seagull-sack arrangement.

Garden subscriber

A subscribed garden service uses a brown 180-litre wheelie bin.

Collect recycling containers yourself: replacement recycling containers can be arranged for collection from Follaton House, Plymouth Road, Totnes, TQ9 5NE Monday to Friday, 9am–4:30pm.
Wheelie bins are delivery-only. The council says 180L refuse and garden wheelie bins cannot be picked up from Follaton House.
Delivery target: South Hams currently aims to complete container deliveries within four weeks.
Order / Replace South Hams Containers

South Hams Garden Waste 2026/27

Current price £73
Brown bin 180L
Collection Fortnightly
Maximum 2 subscriptions

The current service period runs from 1 April 2026 until 31 March 2027. Residents who subscribed before 31 March 2026 could access an early £70 price; the live post-April price is now £73 per subscription.

Garden material accepted

  • Grass cuttings
  • Hedge trimmings
  • Cut flowers
  • Plants
  • Weeds
  • Leaves
  • Twigs
  • Windfall fruit
  • Vase flowers
  • Branches up to 10cm / 4 inches diameter

Keep out of the brown bin

  • Cardboard
  • Food waste
  • Food packaging
  • Hutch sweepings
  • Animal waste
  • Soil
  • Stones
  • Rubble
  • Bags
  • Twine
Your sticker matters. South Hams posts a subscription sticker for each brown bin. Add the house name or number and place it on the correct bin so the crew can identify the subscribed container.
Allow around 10 working days. New subscribers should allow time for the sticker to arrive and the property to be attached to a garden-waste round.
The garden day may be completely different. Do not automatically put the brown bin out because your normal refuse/recycling service is due. Check the garden-waste date separately.
No side garden waste. Garden vegetation must be loose inside the subscribed brown bin. Extra material left alongside the container is not part of the collection.
Subscribe / Check South Hams Garden Waste

South Hams Garden Waste Winter Break 2026/27

Final 2026 service
Collections end after 19 December 2026
Four-week pause
No normal brown-bin garden collection
Resume
Service resumes 18 January 2027
Christmas tree warning: the garden-waste rules do not accept Christmas trees through the brown-bin service. Use an appropriate recycling-centre or other announced Christmas-tree route instead.

South Hams Assisted Collections

Residents who are physically or medically unable to put recycling and refuse at the normal collection point can apply for assistance when another adult at the property cannot do it for them.

Age-related need

Age-related physical limitations can be considered as part of the eligibility assessment.

Medical condition

Residents unable to present containers because of a relevant medical or physical condition can apply.

Household help matters

The service is aimed at households where there is no other adult able to carry out the presentation.

Eligibility can be reviewed. The council may contact assisted-collection users in the future to check that their circumstances have not changed.
Apply for an Assisted Collection

South Hams Healthcare Waste & Sharps

High-grade / infectious healthcare waste

South Hams provides a specialist collection route for healthcare waste such as blood/body-fluid contaminated material, swabs and dressings where the relevant classification requires it.

The sack service is weekly and fresh sacks are supplied for the next collection.

Sharps

The council can arrange collection and replacement of approved sharps boxes for needles and syringes.

A sharps box can be requested for collection when it is around three-quarters full or when the service is no longer needed.

Low-grade healthcare waste: current guidance says items such as incontinence pads, empty stoma bags and non-infectious swabs can be double bagged and placed in normal household refuse.
Purple-lidded cytotoxic containers are different. They are not collected through South Hams’ normal clinical-waste service. Contact the GP, hospital, treatment centre or other healthcare provider that supplied the container for disposal instructions.
Arrange Healthcare Waste Collection

South Hams Bulky Waste Collection: £25 Per Item

Each item £25
Booking horizon Up to 12 weeks
Put outside By 7am
Access Outside only

The current household bulky service charges £25 for each item. Only items appearing in the booking system can be selected for the council collection.

Counting examples

  • Bedframe + headboard = 1 item
  • Bed + mattress = 2 items
  • Three-piece suite = 3 items
  • Fridge = 1 item
  • Freezer = 1 item
  • Washing machine = 1 item
  • Tumble dryer = 1 item

Prepare for collection

  • Place booked items outside by 7am.
  • Use an easily accessible location.
  • Do not leave items behind locked gates.
  • Avoid steps and other obstructions.
  • Crews cannot enter the house.
  • Crews cannot enter garages or outbuildings.
  • Payment cannot be accepted at the property.
Reuse first: suitable furniture or working white goods may be useful to a local reuse organisation or charity. That can avoid the collection fee and keep usable items in circulation.
Book South Hams Bulky Waste

South Hams Holiday Lets: Do Not Assume the Domestic Bin Service Applies

This is especially relevant in a tourism-heavy district including places such as Dartmouth, Salcombe, Kingsbridge, Thurlestone, Bigbury, Hope Cove and coastal villages.

A holiday let can produce controlled/non-domestic waste. A property being physically residential does not automatically mean a holiday-let business can use taxpayer-funded domestic kerbside collections, recycling banks, litter bins or household recycling centres for its commercial waste.

Duty of Care

A business producing controlled waste must have an appropriate arrangement with a registered waste carrier and retain the relevant Waste Transfer / Duty of Care documentation.

Council CWR option

South Hams currently offers a controlled-waste collection service using its normal local collection arrangements for £390 per year.

Business Rates do not automatically buy a domestic waste collection. Holiday-let owners should check the legal status of their waste arrangement rather than simply putting guest rubbish into the domestic system.
South Hams Controlled Waste / Holiday Let Service

Bank Holidays & Christmas 2026

Bank holidays

Collection weekdays can change around bank holidays. South Hams traditionally marks changed dates in its published calendars and live collection information.

Do not automatically add one day without checking because Saturday recovery rounds can also be used.

Christmas / New Year

The festive period receives specific amended arrangements. Check the live property lookup again in December rather than extrapolating an ordinary fortnightly pattern.

Garden waste also has its separate four-week winter suspension.

Do not reuse Christmas 2025 dates for Christmas 2026. They are date-specific operational arrangements rather than a fixed annual pattern.

South Hams Household Recycling Centres

Devon County Council operates the household recycling centres rather than South Hams District Council. There are three centres within the district: Totnes, Torr Quarry near Kingsbridge and Ivybridge.

Totnes TQ9 5JA
Torr Quarry TQ9 7QQ
Ivybridge PL21 9ES
Van permit Check before travelling

Totnes Recycling Centre

Babbage Road Industrial Estate, Totnes, TQ9 5JA

Summer April–September: Monday–Friday 9am–5pm; Saturday–Sunday 10am–6pm.

Winter October–March: Monday–Friday 9am–4:30pm; weekends 10am–4:30pm.

Torr Quarry Recycling Centre

Kingsbridge area, TQ9 7QQ

Summer April–September: Monday–Friday 9am–5pm; Saturday–Sunday 10am–6pm.

Winter October–March: Monday–Friday 9am–4:30pm; weekends 10am–4:30pm.

Ivybridge Recycling Centre

Ermington Road, Ivybridge, PL21 9ES

Summer April–September: Monday–Friday 9am–5pm; Saturday–Sunday 10am–6pm.

Winter October–March: Monday–Friday 9am–4:30pm; weekends 10am–4:30pm.

Devon’s centres are normally closed on Easter Sunday, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Temporary skip changes, engineering works or extreme weather can also cause short-notice restrictions.

Van permit: Devon operates a van-permit system at the South Hams centres. Check whether your vehicle needs a permit before loading it and driving to the site.
No pedestrian access: the local Devon recycling-centre pages advise that these facilities are vehicle-access sites. Do not plan to walk in carrying waste.
Quieter times: Devon says centres are commonly quieter around 9–10am and after 4pm, although queues can still vary with weather, weekends and seasonal tourism.
Black bags are restricted at HWRCs. Household recycling centres are not a substitute for routinely bypassing the normal refuse collection. Devon applies restrictions to excess dustbin / black-bag waste and can require pre-booking.
Totnes Recycling Centre Torr Quarry Recycling Centre Ivybridge Recycling Centre

South Hams Bin Collection: 8 Online Mistakes to Avoid

1. “South Hams has no food collection”

Wrong. A kerbside food caddy is part of the current household recycling service.

2. “Everything goes in one recycling bin”

Wrong. South Hams uses two boxes plus a reusable white sack.

3. “All plastics go in the white sack”

Wrong. Current guidance excludes black plastic, films and carrier bags.

4. “Glass goes with plastic”

Wrong. Glass bottles and jars belong in Recycling Box 1.

5. “Garden waste is on the normal bin day”

Not necessarily. Its fortnightly round can be on another weekday.

6. “Every home has a wheelie bin”

Wrong. Some residual-waste properties use a seagull sack.

7. “I can report a miss immediately”

Wrong. The online service opens reporting from the day after collection was due.

8. “Holiday lets use ordinary household bins”

Not automatically. Controlled/commercial waste rules can apply.

Official South Hams Waste-Service Shortcuts

Check Collection Day

Postcode and exact-property collection lookup.

Report a Miss

Available from the day after a scheduled collection.

Garden Waste

£73 current 2026/27 subscription service.

Order Containers

Boxes, sacks, caddies and appropriate wheelie bins.

Assisted Collection

Apply for help presenting household waste.

Bulky Waste

Current £25-per-item household collection.

South Hams District Council
Follaton House
Plymouth Road
Totnes
Devon
TQ9 5NE

Customer Services: 01803 861234

South Hams District Council Bin Collection FAQs

1. How do I find my exact South Hams bin collection day?

Use South Hams District Council’s live waste collection lookup, enter your postcode and choose the exact property. Check recycling, food waste, residual refuse and subscribed garden waste separately because the garden round may use another weekday.

2. How often is recycling collected in South Hams?

Recycling boxes and the reusable white recycling sack are normally collected weekly. The weekly recycling service is separate from the normal fortnightly residual-refuse pattern.

3. Does South Hams collect food waste every week?

Yes. A kerbside food-waste caddy is part of the current South Hams household service and food waste is normally collected every week with the household recycling service.

4. What goes in South Hams Recycling Box 1?

Recycling Box 1 is used for mixed paper and intact glass bottles and jars. Keep the two materials separated within the box and do not put broken glass in the kerbside recycling box.

5. What goes in South Hams Recycling Box 2?

Box 2 is used for cardboard and cartons. Household batteries and printer cartridges can also use this collection when placed separately in a small bag. Cardboard should fit inside the box.

6. What goes in the South Hams reusable white recycling sack?

The reusable white sack is for accepted household plastic and metal packaging, including plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays, food tins, drinks cans, clean foil, foil trays and empty aerosols. Packaging should be emptied and rinsed. Black plastic, films and carrier bags are excluded from the current kerbside sack.

7. How much is South Hams garden waste in 2026?

The current post-1-April 2026 price is £73 per garden-waste subscription for the 2026/27 service year. Each subscription covers the fortnightly emptying of a 180-litre brown wheelie bin, and a household can have up to two subscriptions.

8. When can I report a missed South Hams collection?

You cannot normally submit the report until the day after the collection was due. It must then be reported within two working days. A missed Friday collection must be reported before the end of Monday.

9. Does every South Hams household have a refuse wheelie bin?

No. The current container service states that a property will have either an appropriate 180-litre refuse wheelie bin or a seagull sack. The alternative sack arrangement is relevant to properties where a normal wheelie bin is unsuitable.

10. Where are the household recycling centres in South Hams?

Devon County Council operates Totnes Recycling Centre at Babbage Road Industrial Estate, Totnes TQ9 5JA; Torr Quarry Recycling Centre near Kingsbridge, TQ9 7QQ; and Ivybridge Recycling Centre at Ermington Road, Ivybridge PL21 9ES. Check the live Devon site pages before travelling because opening hours and material restrictions can change.

Independent resident guide: this page explains South Hams District Council household waste and recycling services in practical language. It is not South Hams District Council or Devon County Council. Exact property dates, disruption notices, holiday arrangements, service charges, eligibility decisions and recycling-centre restrictions should always be confirmed through the official services linked above.

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