Give your bins a wheelie good Christmas

This year, across the borough of Walsall, the council has plans in place to minimise disruption to bin collections as much as possible over the festive period. There will be changes in scheduled collection days only for households where scheduled collection days fall on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.

Councillor Kerry Murphy, Portfolio Holder for Street Pride at Walsall Council, said, “Residents who would be due to have a collection on Christmas Day will be having earlier collections of their recycling and waste bins on Saturday 21 December 2024. It’s been planned this way so that they’re not left with full bins just as the festive period starts. 

“We will be putting out reminders about the arrangements of course, but we’re all busy in the run-up to the big day trying to remember 101 things still left to do and I can imagine how frustrating it would be to forget to give the bins their early Christmas outing. 

“So, I’d like to appeal to all the people who are much more organised than I could ever hope to be, to spread the word in their streets and get those bins out for emptying on 21 December 2024. These households will of course have extra waste to dispose of after Christmas and so our crews will collect one bag of waste along with their scheduled collection on 8 January 2025.” 

Residents who would be due for recycling and waste collections on Boxing Day will instead have collections on Saturday 28 December 2024 and residents who would be due for recycling and waste collections on New Year’s Day will have collections on Saturday 4 January 2025. One extra bag of waste per household will be collected on these dates only. 

For reasons of operational efficiency, the bags allowed for collection are generally collected by separate crews, so residents shouldn’t be concerned at the recycling and waste workers not taking bins and bags at the same time. 

Separate bagged waste will not be collected from households not seeing any disruption to their scheduled collection days. 

Other waste, and particularly waste which can be recycled such as cardboard boxes and glass bottles, can be taken to the council’s household waste and recycling centres at Fryers Road in Bloxwich and Merchants Way in Aldridge. Both sites are only closed on three days each year - Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, but are usually very busy around the festive period, so residents are advised to ‘view the queue’ via the webcams at the two sites before setting out. 

Councillor Murphy added: “I would like to place on record my respect for, and appreciation of, our recycling and waste workers for their hard work throughout the year and in all weathers. And make no mistake, it is hard work. These workers provide an essential service we rely on so much, yet take for granted because they just quietly crack on and do it.” 

Residents can check their bin collection dates by using the postcode finder at https://go.walsall.gov.uk/bins/check-your-bin-collection-dates