Wokingham Christmas Bin Collections 2026: Dates Not Out Yet

Wokingham Borough Council has not yet published its Christmas and New Year bin collection dates for 2026/27. We checked the council’s website on 25 September 2026: the most recent festive calendar it carries is the 2025/26 one, published in August 2025, and the file paths it would use for a 2026 calendar do not exist yet.

This Christmas is the first under the council’s new contractor. Biffa took over collections across the borough on 1 June 2026 with new vehicles and redesigned rounds, so last year’s pattern is a guide to the shape of the disruption, not a promise about this year’s dates.

The quick answer

No collections on Friday 25 December, Monday 28 December or Friday 1 January. Those are the three bank holidays in the 2026/27 festive period, and the council’s standing rule is that crews work every bank holiday except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. Last year every round from Christmas Day onwards moved one day later and the catch-up did not finish until Saturday 10 January. The 2026 dates have not been published; this page will be updated the day they are, and the diary date for that is mid-November.

What is already fixed for Christmas 2026

Three things are settled before the council prints a calendar.

• The bank holidays fall on a Friday, a Monday and a Friday. Christmas Day is Friday 25 December 2026, the Boxing Day bank holiday moves to a substitute Monday 28 December, and New Year’s Day is Friday 1 January 2027. The council lists all three in its own 2026/27 term dates calendar.
• Crews do not work those three days. Every other bank holiday is collected as normal. That rule, and the 5.30am put-out time on any bank holiday, is set out on our bin collection days page.
• Garden waste does not stop. The brown bin subscription promises 26 fortnightly collections across all 52 weeks, so a Christmas week garden collection is still due, on whatever revised day the calendar gives it (garden waste collection).

Two lost weekday collections in one week, then a third the following Friday, is the awkward shape. It is why the catch-up ran into the second week of January last year and why it probably will again.

Last year’s dates, as the shape of what to expect

These are the revised days the council published for Christmas 2025/26. They are not this year’s dates. They come from the council’s own 2025/26 collection calendar, and they show the pattern the borough has used: nothing changes before Christmas Day, then every round slips by one working day and Saturdays are worked to claw the week back.

Read across to 2026 and the shape is different, because the lost days are different. In 2025 the two Christmas bank holidays were a Thursday and a Friday, so one week absorbed both. In 2026 Christmas Day is a Friday and the substitute Boxing Day is the following Monday, which means the week of 28 December loses a day at the start rather than the end, and then New Year’s Day takes a Friday out of the week after. Expect the slip to run from Friday 25 December to somewhere around Saturday 9 January, but wait for the calendar before you put anything out on a Saturday.

The 2025/26 calendar also said that homes on narrow access rounds would receive a letter of their own, because their collections change separately. The council’s May 2026 contract notes say about 500 of those narrow lane households moved from weekly blue bags to a fortnightly wheeled bin when Biffa started (waste collection changes 2026), so this will be their first Christmas on the standard pattern.

Why the new contract matters this year

Biffa’s first month, June 2026, took in 417,993 collections from 75,565 households using 23 collection vehicles (council news, 28 July 2026). The rounds were redesigned at the same time, and the council told residents whose day changed to expect a different time of day too, because crews are on new routes. Its advice for the switch was to have everything at the kerb the night before (waste collection changes 2026). Over Christmas, when catch-up rounds start at 5.30am, that advice is worth following whether or not your day has moved.

If a collection is missed you can report it at any time through the council’s missed collection form.

Recycling the extra: what goes where

• Cardboard goes in the green recycling bags, cut down and sealed so it stays dry. The council’s rule is that wet cardboard cannot be recycled and crews will not take loose card left beside the bags (recycling). Big boxes that will not fold down go to the tip.
• Glass bottles do not go in the kerbside bags. Wokingham still has no kerbside glass collection and does not plan one before 2027, so bottles go to a bottle bank (recycling).
• Foil trays and clean foil are accepted in the green bags. Wrapping paper, plastic film and crisp packets are not.
• The two re3 tips at Smallmead in Reading and Longshot Lane in Bracknell close at 4pm on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve and are shut on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. Winter hours are 8am to 6pm and a booked slot is compulsory. Full detail on our tip opening times page.

Still to be confirmed, and when

• The Christmas 2026/27 collection calendar. Last year’s was published in August. If the council follows the same pattern for its new contractor, expect it in the autumn bin calendar or as a separate festive notice by mid-November. This page will be updated the day it appears.
• Whether narrow access rounds get a separate letter again. The 2025/26 calendar said they would; the 2026 contract moved most of them onto standard bins.
• Christmas tree collection. The council has not published any tree collection arrangement for January 2027. Until it does, the only published route is the garden waste service for subscribers or a booked trip to a re3 site.

Related: bin collection days, tip opening times, Christmas trains and buses, parking in Wokingham.