Refuse collection and recycling in Headington, Oxford

Refuse, recycling, and nuisances in Headington

Full details of collection days are on the city council's Household waste and recycling page, which has a link to an online collection day search.

The city is divided into two collection zones, and the whole of Headington and Marston is in the north (BLUE) zone.

It is an offence to leave rubbish on the pavement earlier than the night before collection. (Note that collection can be different following a bank holiday.)

Headington has an Area Streetscene Team responsible for collecting refuse, the maintenance of minor roads, recycling, and public toilet cleaning. The area managers are often present at the area committee meeting each month.

City Works now has a new telephone number: 0800 227676. You are then offered a selection of numbers to get through to the department you need.

Recycling bin

Doorstep collection

There are four different containers, but only two of them are collected each week. Under the present system, refuse and green boxes will be collected one week, and garden and waste and blue boxes the other.

Wheelie bin

The wheelie bin (right) comes in three sizes. Rubbish that cannot be recycled must be put in the wheelie bin.

If your property is assessed by the city council as being unsuitable for a wheelie bin, you will be provided with special lilac sacks.

Rubbish left out in ordinary bin-bags is no longer collected

Pictures showing how
wheelie bins are emptied

Green box

• glass bottles and jars
• newspapers and magazines
• office paper

Items are sorted manually in the collection van.

Each household can have up to two free green boxes (including the one initially provided), but if you need more again, they cost £5 each

Clothing/handbags/shoes can be put out for recycling with the green box as long as they are in a special red plastic bag (telephone City Works above)

Blue box

• Plastic bottles (not yoghurt pots etc); but not lids
• All cans and tins
• Envelopes
• Wrapping paper
• Card and cardboard
• Directories
• Clean aluminium foil

There is no need to separate items, as they are all tipped together into a special refuse lorry and sorted later by machine. If you flatten plastic bottles, they will not take up so much room; but it is not essential. Cardboard too large for the box can be stacked beside it and will not be treated as "side waste". Each household can have up to two free blue boxes (including the one intially provided), but if you need more again, they cost £5 each. Alternatively you can purchase a blue wheelie bin from the council (in either large or small size: each costs £20.

Below: giant bin used by collectors. The blue box and lilac-sack items are carefully tipped into this bin, and anything unsuitable removed. They then get tipped into a clean waste lorry that takes the contents to the Milton Keynes recycling plant.

Green container bin

Plastics seem to be causing the most confusion. Only plastic bottles can be put in the blue box.
See this Milton Keynes film

Other items such as yoghurt pots must NOT go in the blue box. So plastic items such as margarine tubs, ice cream containers, and yogurt pots still have to be taken to the recycling bank in the carpark next to Waitrose.

Items that have no recycling triangle cannot be recycled. And at present Oxford City Council has no means of recycling carrier bags, polystyrene, clingfilm, toys or gadgets.

Note, however, that there is a carrier bag recycling box inside many shops, including Headington Co-op.

Green bag

• Grass cuttings
• Prunings
• Leaves
• Small shurbs
• Plants and weeds
• Cut flowers
• Branches no larger than 7.5cm in diameter

Cardboard should not be put in this bag

Large items

Up to three large items
(e.g. fridges) can be removed
by the city council free of charge:
tel. 0800 227676

Cardboard tetrapaks

There are no facilities yet to recycle these in Headington, but there are banks elsewhere, e.g. Tesco's on Cowley Road

Re-use

Items that cannot be recycled can often be reused:

Charity shops. Headington has six charity shops (but beware of commercial organizations who collect clothes from your doorstep). Do not leave items outside the shops at weekends, as they get ransacked; and bear in mind that only good-quality items are acceptable
There is a recycling bank for shoes and clothes at the recycling centre in the carpark by Waitrose
Orinoco holds a swap shop in the Bullingdon Community Centre on the second Saturday of each month
Headington Community Centre host a swap shop and community café every third Saturday of the month
Paint The County Council refuse sites will now only accept certain paints. See Orinoco guide to the complex business of paint disposal
Oxford Freecycle is a wonderful way of getting rid of unwanted items, especially ones that are too large for charity shops
Milk container tops cannot be recycled by Oxford City Council, but some charities collect them

Nuisances

See the City Council Report it online page where you can report on just about everything, e.g. fly-tipping; defects in roads, pavements, traffic lights, street lights, street signs; flooding; dead animals; missed bin collection.

Dog waste