Dulwich Bin Collection Days: Houses Are Fortnightly

Two things about Dulwich bins are true and neither council says them out loud.

Southwark empties houses fortnightly. Not weekly. Its waste pages never print the word, and the only way to find out is to run the address lookup. And the borough boundary runs straight through Dulwich, so a green wheelie bin means one thing on one side of Croxted Road and the opposite thing on the other.

Both are set out below, with the source for each.

The quick answer

• Southwark houses: refuse one week, recycling the next. Food waste and garden waste are weekly.
• Southwark flats: refuse and recycling both weekly.
• Southwark green bin is rubbish. Lambeth green bin is recycling. Same colour, opposite job.
• Bins out by 6am, lid shut, on your property boundary and not on the pavement.
• Garden waste: £84 a year in Southwark, £99 in Lambeth.
• Bulky waste: £37 in Southwark for up to 10 items. Lambeth charges £116 for the same load.
• The tip: Devon Street SE15, open every day, no booking. Lambeth’s is at West Norwood, booked only, and shut on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
• Find your day: Southwark’s bin lookup or Lambeth’s collection day checker.

Which council collects your bins

Most of the Dulwich Today area is Southwark. The exception matters, because it covers a large slice of what people call Dulwich.

• Southwark: Dulwich Village, East Dulwich, Nunhead, Peckham, Camberwell, and the eastern half of Herne Hill.
• Lambeth: West Dulwich, including Turney Road, Rosendale Road and Thurlow Park Road, plus the Herne Hill and Loughborough Junction side of SE24.

Checked against the Office for National Statistics postcode lookup: SE21 8LX (Turney Road) and SE24 0NG (Dulwich Road) both return Lambeth, while SE21 7AD and SE21 7BG in the Village return Southwark. Southwark’s own address gazetteer lists Turney Road but returns no waste rounds for it, which is a reliable tell that you are over the line.

Southwark: which bin is which

Southwark’s household waste page and its recycling page set out the containers. The missed collection page confirms the third one.

• Green wheelie bin: general household rubbish. Only one bin is emptied per collection.
• Blue wheelie bin: recycling, mixed together, loose, no bags inside.
• Brown wheelie bin: food waste or garden waste.
• Kitchen caddy: 5 litres, for food. You can use your own container if you prefer, and you do not have to line it.

Recycling in Southwark takes paper and card, glass bottles and jars of any colour, plastic bottles, trays, pots and tubs, metal tins, cans, aerosols and foil, and food and drink cartons. It does not take Pyrex, drinking glasses, mirrors or window glass, polystyrene, coat hangers, toys, carrier bags, plastic film, crisp and sweet wrappers, or tissues and nappies. Broken glass goes in a black bag, wrapped in cardboard first.

Southwark also refuses to collect a bin that is too heavy, overflowing so the lid will not shut, or contaminated. A contaminated bin gets a swing tag, and it stays uncollected until you take the wrong items out.

The bit Southwark does not publish: how often

The council’s waste pages never state a collection frequency. The closest they come is one line on the household waste page: “We only collect one general waste bin per collection cycle.” Nothing says how long a cycle is.

Its own address lookup does say. Run against Dulwich addresses on 24 August 2026, it returned:

Two patterns come out of that. Street-level houses are on alternating weeks, with refuse one Monday and recycling the next. Flats and communal blocks get both every week, and their refuse and recycling days are often different days.

The lookup carries its own warning, and it is worth repeating. The dates it shows are “when collections would normally be due, and are not directly linked to collections being undertaken by collection vehicles”. Treat it as the round timetable rather than a promise about a particular lorry.

Putting your bins out

Southwark will only collect if the bin is:

• out by 6am on your collection day
• closed, with the lid down
• visible and reachable at the front of the property
• on your property boundary, not on the pavement

The pavement rule has one exception, and it is a local one. Households in the Walworth Road and Rye Lane areas are on timed street collections instead, and they do put bags out at the kerb.

Lambeth’s rule is tighter at both ends. Recycling must be out by 6am but not before 8pm the night before, and the bin has to be back off the pavement by 8am the following day.

Bank holidays: neither council publishes a policy

This is the question that spikes every May and August, and there is no honest way to answer it from either website, because neither publishes an answer.

Southwark has no bank holiday waste page at all. The only statement anywhere in its waste section is on the missed collection page: “We collect waste and recycling Monday to Friday, but we may collect at weekends during the Christmas and New Year period.” Its parking section has a detailed bank holiday page; its waste section has nothing equivalent.

What we can report is what the lookup returned. For Monday rounds in Dulwich Village on 24 August 2026, it gave the next food waste and recycling collection as Monday 31 August, the late summer bank holiday, rather than pushing them later in the week. That is the scheduled due date, not a guarantee. If your bins are still out on the Tuesday, report it.

Lambeth publishes no bank holiday waste page either, though it does publish a detailed one for parking.

Garden waste

Both boroughs charge, both collect weekly, and the two schemes are structured completely differently.

Southwark: £84 a year. You get a 240 litre brown bin, emptied every week. The terms are unusually rigid:

• the year runs 1 April to 31 March, and a late start costs the same as a full year
• no refunds if you do not use the full 12 months
• no Direct Debit, and no American Express
• you cannot pay for more than one year at a time
• the bin stays the council’s property, and it is taken back if you do not renew

If you do not want a bin, sacks cost £44 for 20, and the council will collect up to 20 at a time.

Lambeth: £99 a year for two reusable bags collected weekly, and the bags are extra. Each reusable bag costs £11. A third bag on the round costs £37 a year. A roll of 10 compostable bags for a one-off big clear-out is £37. Paying by cheque adds a £15 administration charge.

Southwark’s garden waste bin takes grass cuttings, weeds, plants and flowers, leaves, prunings, and twigs and small branches up to 10cm across. It will not take soil, turf, stones, gravel, bricks, plant pots, fencing, MDF, treated wood, garden furniture or Japanese knotweed. Any food waste in the bin stops the whole collection until it is removed.

Bulky waste: Southwark is a third of the price

This is the widest gap between the two councils, and it applies to exactly the same sofa.

• Southwark: £37 for up to 10 large items in one collection. No batteries and no nitrous oxide canisters. Items must be at ground level, visible and reachable. Source.
• Lambeth: £36 for up to 3 items, £70 for up to 6, £116 for up to 10. Ten is the maximum on one booking, payment must clear within 10 minutes, and it is non-refundable. Source.

Lambeth does offer something Southwark does not. Items in good enough condition to be reused are collected free through a partnership with the charity Emmaus.

Neither service can be used for a property you rent out, or for waste left behind by a previous tenant. That counts as commercial waste in both boroughs.

Missed collections

Southwark asks you to wait until after 4pm on your collection day before reporting, and to check first whether your bin has a contamination tag. It sets no deadline for reporting.

Lambeth does. You have two working days, and after that the bin waits for the next scheduled collection. Lambeth also says its evening crews often return the same day, so it asks you to wait until the following morning before reporting at all.

Neither council will come back if the miss was not its fault: a bin left in the wrong place, an overfilled bin whose lid will not close, or the wrong waste in the wrong bin.

The tip: two very different sites

Southwark Reuse and Recycling Centre, Devon Street, SE15 1AL.

• Open every day, 8.30am to 4.30pm, except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.
• No appointment needed. Quietest between 10am and 3pm on weekdays.
• Take photo ID plus a current council tax bill, a recent utility bill or a recent bank statement.
• It takes general mixed household rubbish, rubble and hardcore, plasterboard, tyres, gas bottles, engine and cooking oil, fridges, furniture, wood and textiles.
• Vans, pickups and converted cars need a permit. Four a year per resident, and entry is only between 8.30am and 9.30am on the booked date. Nothing over 3.5 tonnes is admitted at all.

Lambeth Reuse and Recycling Centre, Vale Street, West Norwood, SE27 9PA.

• Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Monday, Thursday and Friday 7.30am to 4.30pm, Saturday and Sunday 8am to 5pm, and shut every day between midday and 1pm.
• You must book a time slot to arrive in a vehicle.
• Lambeth residents only, and you must bring photo ID and proof of a Lambeth address every visit.
• It is for reuse and recycling only. You cannot take rubbish there for disposal.
• No vans or commercial vehicles at all, and they are not allowed to unload outside the gate either.
• Cooking oil and engine oil are not being accepted at present.

If you live in West Dulwich and want to dump general rubbish, Lambeth points you to the Wandsworth site at Smugglers Way instead, or to a paid bulky collection.

Food waste

Southwark collects food waste weekly and free from most flats and street-level homes, with a 5 litre kitchen caddy. Cooked and uncooked food both go in, including meat, fish, bones, bread, pasta, rice, dairy, fruit and vegetable peel, teabags, coffee grounds and plate scrapings. Liquids, oils, plastic bags and packaging do not.

Lambeth uses a 23 litre kerbside brown container rather than a wheelie bin, and collects weekly.

Cross-check before you buy a bin

If you are moving across the Dulwich boundary in either direction, the single thing most likely to cost you a contamination tag is the colour. Southwark green is rubbish. Lambeth green is recycling, and Lambeth rubbish is black.

Also on this site: roadworks and travel in Dulwich, parking in Dulwich and Dulwich council tax bands.

Figures checked on 24 August 2026 against Southwark Council, Lambeth Council and Southwark’s own collection day lookup. Prices and rounds change; always confirm with your council before you pay.