Black bin collections halve to fortnightly on Monday 5 October, with a new weekly food caddy. The 31 August bank holiday runs as normal. Garden waste stays £49.
The big change is dated. From Monday 5 October 2026 Solihull Council collects your black bin every two weeks instead of every week. In its place you get a weekly food waste collection. Recycling and garden waste carry on exactly as they are (Solihull Council, changes to your rubbish collections).
Two food caddies are being delivered to every house and to flats with their own bins. Deliveries started in August. The council asks you not to use them until the week beginning 5 October (Solihull Council, food waste collection).
Below is what goes in each bin, what happens on the August bank holiday, what garden waste and bulky collections cost this year, and the Bickenhill tip hours. Every figure here was taken from Solihull Council’s own pages on 24 August 2026.
The quick answer
- Now: black bin weekly, brown recycling bin fortnightly, green garden bin fortnightly if you subscribe.
- From 5 October 2026: black bin fortnightly, food caddy weekly. Recycling and garden waste unchanged.
- Monday 31 August 2026 is collected as normal. We checked two Monday rounds on the council’s own calendar and both return 31 August.
- All containers out by 6.00am. The crews can arrive at six.
- Garden waste: £49 a year, frozen for 2026/27, running to 30 June 2027.
- Bulky collection: £42 for one item, up to £63 for six.
- Missed bin: wait until 4.00pm, then report it within two working days.
- Find your day: Solihull’s bin collection calendar. Postcode, then address.
The August bank holiday: collections go ahead
Solihull publishes no general bank holiday policy, so we checked the council’s own calendar instead. Two Monday-round addresses both give Monday 31 August 2026 as the next black bin collection: Alcott Lane in Marston Green, and Yardley Wood Road in Solihull Lodge. Solihull Lodge is also due its brown recycling bin that day.
Tuesday rounds are not shunted either. Addresses on Widney Manor Road and Silhill Hall Road both return Tuesday 1 September, a week after 25 August, with no gap inserted for the holiday.
So put your bin out as usual. The one period Solihull does change is Christmas and New Year, and the council says those dates are published on its website at the end of November or early December (Solihull Council, alternate collections FAQs).
How to find your collection day
There is one official lookup and it is free: Solihull’s bin collection calendar. Enter your postcode, pick your address, and it returns the last and next date for each bin you have. You can sign up for an email the day before from the same page.
Not everyone moves to the same fortnightly pattern in October. The council has published two example cycles (cycle 1, cycle 2) and says a small number of households will have their collection day changed altogether. Those households are being written to directly.
Which bin, and what goes in it
| Container | What it takes | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Black wheelie bin, or purple sacks | Household waste that cannot be recycled | Weekly now, fortnightly from 5 October |
| Brown wheelie bin, or clear sacks | Mixed recycling, including glass | Fortnightly |
| Green wheelie bin | Garden waste, subscription only | Fortnightly |
| Food caddies (indoor and outdoor) | Food scraps | Weekly, from 5 October |
Source: Solihull Council, what goes into my containers.
The brown bin takes more than most people think
Solihull collects all recycling mixed, so there is no separate paper box. Glass bottles and jars go in the brown bin. So do things many councils refuse:
- crisp packets, sweet and biscuit wrappers, and fruit and vegetable net bags
- plastic bags, loose, and plastic film, sleeves and pouches
- bubble wrap and cling film, in sections up to one metre
- cheese, meat and fish wrapping
- aerosol cans and clean foil
- plastic plant pots, as long as they are not black, are between 4cm and 30cm, and are unstacked, empty and clean
What it will not take: shredded paper, greasy food packaging such as pizza boxes, polystyrene, tissues and kitchen roll, cards with glitter or foil, hard plastics such as CDs and toys, drinking glasses, broken glass, light bulbs, vases, vapes and batteries.
If the brown bin is full, cardboard can be left beside it, flattened and cut to a size that would have fitted inside. Extra recycling is accepted in a sturdy box up to 55 litres or a reusable bag. Not in black sacks.
The black bin has a hard rule attached
Solihull operates a “no side waste, lid closed” policy. Anything left beside the black bin is not collected, and the lid has to shut. The council’s own wording is blunt: if you leave the extra waste out after the collection, “you are fly-tipping and may be given a fixed penalty notice”.
Larger bins are available on request if you have a medical condition producing more non-recyclable waste, or if you meet the criteria on the replacement containers page. The council says flatly that it does not give extra capacity for pet waste.
The food caddy, from 5 October
Deliveries began on Monday 3 August and run in phases to Monday 14 September, working from the north of the borough down to the rural south and east. We have the delivery date for every area.
You do not need to buy liners. Any bag will do except a black one, so a bread bag or a salad bag works. You can also use the caddy with no liner at all.
In: cooked and raw scraps, peelings, leftovers, bread, rice, pasta, cereal, meat and fish including bones, dairy, coffee grounds, tea bags, jams, and wet or dry pet food.
Out: liquids including oil and fat, garden waste, plastic tubs and trays, cat or dog litter, nappies, and biodegradable coffee pods.
Flats with communal bins do not get food waste collections until 2027, and their rubbish stays weekly until then. The same applies to flats above shops.
Garden waste: £49, and the fee is frozen
Garden waste stopped being free on 7 July 2025. The subscription for 2026/27 costs £49 a year, unchanged from last year, and covers 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027. There is no pro-rata discount if you join part way through (Solihull Council, garden waste collections).
- Permits for 2026/27 were posted from Monday 11 May 2026. Allow 10 to 15 working days.
- The sticker goes on the back of the bin, underneath the handles. Bins without a valid sticker are not emptied.
- You do not need a council account to subscribe.
- Branches must be no thicker than 7.5cm. Soil, turf, ash, animal bedding, plant pots and compostable bags are all refused.
Bulky and small items
Bulky collections are charged, and the concession has gone. Prices are per booking (Solihull Council, book a bulky collection):
| Items | Cost |
|---|---|
| 1 | £42 |
| 2 to 3 | £47 |
| 4 to 5 | £57.50 |
| 6 | £63 |
The trap is the counting. A bed base, a headboard and a mattress count as three items, not one. So does a fridge and a freezer sold as a pair. Garden waste is not accepted on a bulky collection at all.
The small items collection is free, and it is the one most people do not know about. Solihull will collect, on booking:
- household batteries, in one tied sandwich bag
- paint, up to three cans of no more than 10 litres each, lids on and sealed
- small electricals, up to three carrier bags, intact and not dismantled
- clean textiles and shoes, up to two dustbin-sized bags, shoes in pairs
Items go outside your front door for 8.00am. Microwaves and televisions are too big for this service and need a bulky booking or a trip to Bickenhill.
Missed collection: the 4.00pm rule
Solihull asks you to wait until 4.00pm on your collection day before reporting anything. After that you have two working days to report it, and the council aims to return within two working days (Solihull Council, missed collections).
The crews will not come back if the bin was not out on time, was in the wrong place, was too heavy, or held materials they do not collect. In those cases you wait for the next scheduled collection, which from October will be a fortnight away rather than a week.
Bickenhill tip: booked slots, and proof you live here
Bickenhill Household Waste and Recycling Centre is on Coventry Road, B92 0DY. You must book an appointment. Slots are 15 minutes, the booking week runs Monday to Sunday, and new slots are released daily on a rolling three-week basis. Take proof that you live in Solihull, on paper or on your phone (Solihull Council, Bickenhill HWRC).
Summer hours, 1 April to 31 October
- Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 9.00am to 5.00pm
- Tuesday: 9.00am to 6.30pm
- Saturday and Sunday: 9.00am to 4.30pm
Winter hours, 1 November to 31 March
- Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 9.00am to 4.00pm
- Tuesday: 9.00am to 5.30pm
- Saturday and Sunday: 9.00am to 4.00pm
Vans and car-and-trailer combinations need a permit, and from 3 August 2026 those permits are digital. The site takes soil, rubble, wood, scrap metal, engine and cooking oil, gas bottles, paint, batteries including car batteries, spectacles, textiles and vapes. It refuses trade waste, liquid waste, asbestos and tyres.
Bins and your bill
One question the council answers directly, and the answer is no. Asked whether residents will pay less council tax now that black bins are emptied half as often, Solihull says any saving “will be used to make up the shortfall in the Council budget”. What is actually happening to your bill is set out on our Solihull council tax bands page.
If a collection is missed because a road is closed, our Solihull roadworks page tracks what is dug up where. For where to leave the car while you take a load to the tip, see parking in Solihull.
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