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Date: 10 December 2025
Residents are reminded to plan ahead for their Christmas and New Year bin collections, and to recycle responsibly over the festive period.
The festive season is one of the busiest times of the year for the Council’s waste collection teams, with more packaging, food waste and recycling than usual. To help everything run smoothly, residents are being asked to check their collection dates and make use of local recycling centres where possible.
Christmas and New Year collection arrangements
There will be changes to bin and box collections over the Christmas period.
Collections due on:
- Thursday 25 December will be collected on Saturday 20 December
- Friday 26 December will be collected on Saturday 27 December
- Wednesday 31 December will be collected on as normal
- Thursday 1 January will be collected on Saturday 3 January
If your bin does not get collected on the rescheduled date, please leave it out again for collection the following day.
For kerbside recycling boxes (Bryson Recycling):
- Thursday 25 December will be collected on Saturday 27 December
- Friday 26 December will be collected on Sunday 28 December
- Thursday 1 January will be collected on Saturday 3 January
Residents are advised to keep an eye on Council’s social media channels for any updates.
Recycling centres
Operating winter hours (1 October - 31 March):
- Monday–Friday: 8.30am - 5.30pm
- Saturday: 9am - 5pm
- Sunday: 12 noon - 5pm
Last admission 15 minutes before closing.
All centres will be closed on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.
Visit our Recycling pages for full details.
Recycling your Christmas waste
- Wrapping paper: Avoid foil, glitter, or plastic paper; non-recyclable wrapping goes in your general waste.
- Christmas food: Freeze leftovers or use them in recipes from the Love Food Hate Waste website; put unavoidable food waste in brown bin or caddy.
- Lights, decorations, trees: Old electricals and batteries can be recycled at centres; artificial trees at centres; real trees at centres or drop off at Belfast Zoo on 3, 4, 10 and 11 January).
- Cardboard: Flatten boxes, remove plastic wrapping, and place in your blue bin or recycling box.
To ensure collections run smoothly:
- Put bins out by 7am and return by 7pm.
- Keep lids closed - overfilled bins won’t be emptied.
- Don’t leave extra bags beside bins - they won’t be collected and could lead to fines.
- Add your house number to bins.
- Recycle more and flatten packaging to save space.
Book a free bulky waste collection on our Bulky waste collections page.