Southport bin days: green bins go out on 31 August

Put your green bin out as normal on Monday 31 August. Sefton does not move collections for the August bank holiday, and its own published calendar marks that Monday as a collection day.

The grey and brown bins are a non-question in Southport, and that is the part most people do not realise. We looked up sixteen Southport and Birkdale addresses on the council’s own collection search on 24 August 2026. Not one of them had a grey or brown bin day on a Monday. Refuse and recycling here run Tuesday to Friday. Monday is the garden waste day, borough-wide.

So a bank holiday Monday cannot disrupt your household waste in Southport. It can only affect the green bin, and the green bin runs anyway.

Everything below was checked against Sefton Council’s own pages, calendars and collection search on 24 August 2026.

The three bins

Sefton runs three wheelie bins, all 240 litres as standard. Some Bootle and Litherland streets are still on sacks rather than bins, but Southport is wheelie-bin territory.

• Grey bin, refuse. Fortnightly. Everything that cannot be recycled or composted, plus food waste for now. The council will not take soil, rubble, building materials, liquids, hazardous waste, furniture, hot ashes, car parts, electricals, batteries, fluorescent tubes, chemicals or anything over 25kg.
• Brown bin, recycling. Fortnightly, alternating with the grey bin. Card and cartons, glass bottles and jars, aerosols, foil, tins and cans, paper, plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays, all mixed together. Sefton is blunt about the one thing that ruins a load: “No plastic bags! Plastic bags can not be separated, can damage equipment and increase costs.”
• Green bin, garden waste. Every three weeks, on a Monday, at no charge. Grass, tree and shrub clippings, weeds, dead flowers and leaves. No food waste, because Sefton composts the green bin separately.

Details from Sefton’s What goes in my Bin pages for the brown, grey and green bins.

Two rules the crews actually enforce. The lid has to shut, and you must not leave extra bags beside the bin. Anything that will not fit has to go to a tip.

Finding your own day

Sefton’s collection search takes a postcode, then an address, and returns the next date for each bin separately. It is worth using rather than guessing, because your green bin day is almost certainly not the same as your grey bin day.

Here is what it returned for four real Southport addresses on 24 August 2026.

If your address does not come up at all, Sefton has a property not on bin schedule form.

Bank holidays: nothing moves, except at Christmas

Sefton is one of the councils that simply carries on. Its published green bin calendars for the three Monday rounds mark every 2026 bank holiday Monday as a normal collection day:

• Monday 6 April, Easter Monday
• Monday 4 May, the early May bank holiday
• Monday 25 May, the spring bank holiday
• Monday 31 August, the summer bank holiday

Those dates are shaded as collection days on the council’s own week one, week two and week three calendars.

Christmas is the exception, and Sefton handles it the opposite way round to most councils. Rather than pushing collections back, it brings them forward. Over the 2025 festive period a Tuesday collection moved to the Monday, a Wednesday moved to the Tuesday, and a Thursday moved to the Wednesday. Only Boxing Day slipped later, to the Saturday. Sefton also warns that over Christmas it prioritises grey bins and sacks, and that bulky and clinical waste stop between 24 December and 5 January.

The 2026 festive dates have not been published yet. When they are, assume earlier rather than later.

Garden waste is free, but it stops for the winter

Sefton does not charge for garden waste. There is no subscription, no annual fee and no sticker, and the council’s garden waste pages quote no price anywhere.

What it does instead is switch the service off for a third of the year, and this is the fact worth writing down. Reading the collection dates straight off the three published calendars:

• The last green bin collections of 2026 fall on 9, 16 or 23 November, depending on which Monday round you are on.
• There are no green bin collections at all in December, January or February.
• The service came back in 2026 on 2, 9 or 16 March. Some rounds went more than four months without a collection.

If you have a hedge to cut back, cut it before your November date or you are taking it to the tip yourself.

Two other garden waste points. An additional green bin costs £37 as a delivery and administration charge. Properties still on weekly sack collections can have up to four garden waste bags taken free of charge instead of a bin.

Bulky waste: £26, and beds count strangely

Sefton charges £26.00 for a bulky collection and takes a maximum of three items per visit. It will take sofas, chairs, tables, wardrobes, beds, fridges, freezers, washing machines, cookers, lawn mowers, radiators and bagged toys, household items or carpet.

The trap is in how a bed is counted. Sefton counts every component separately, so on its own what bulky items do we take page:

• a single bed counts as 3 items, so one full collection at £26
• a double bed counts as 6 items, so two collections at £52
• a king-size bed counts as 9 items, so three collections at £78

It will not take building materials, wood other than furniture, fencing, windows, glass doors, pipes, flooring, asbestos, paint, baths, toilets, ceramic sinks, treadmills or weights. Collections are booked through the council’s bulky item page.

Missed collection: you have three working days

Sefton’s missed collections rules are tighter than most, and the window is short.

• Do not report it before midday the day after the collection was due.
• Report it within 3 working days of the due date. Miss that and you wait for the next scheduled collection or take the waste to a tip yourself.
• Once reported, the council aims to come back within 5 working days.

Before it accepts a report, the council checks that the bin was out by 6.30am, at the agreed collection point, usually kerbside with the handles facing the road. It also checks that the right bin was presented, that the lid was shut, that the contents were right and that the bin was not too heavy to lift. Green bins are the one exception on timing: the council says they “can be emptied up until 8pm on collection days”, so do not panic if the green lorry has not come by teatime.

The four tips

Sefton has four household waste recycling centres, listed on its local tips page.

They open 8am to 8pm from 1 April to 30 September, and 8am to 5pm from 1 October to 31 March. They close on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day only.

In an ordinary car you can just turn up. Vans and trailers between two and three metres need a free appointment, booked through the Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority or on 07774 787340 or 787370, and are limited to 12 visits a year. Asbestos is taken at certain sites by appointment only, on 0203 567 4200.

Note the Southport tip on Foul Lane sits directly in the Southport Eastern Access works at Kew Roundabout, so allow for that on the way in.

Coming next: a weekly food caddy

Food waste currently goes in the grey bin. That changes: Sefton says caddy deliveries begin in winter 2026/27, that collections will then be weekly, and that caddies, liners and re-stocks will be provided at no charge. The exact date is not confirmed. The council’s food waste page is where it will appear.

Separately, Sefton has been moving streets off weekly black sacks and onto fortnightly grey and brown bins. The current phase covers the Blundellsands, Church, Litherland, Linacre and Victoria wards, with bins delivered over the weekend of 20 to 22 March and the new collections starting Tuesday 24 March 2026. Collection days did not change for those streets.

Elsewhere on Southport Today

• Southport roadworks and travel, including the Foul Lane and Kew Roundabout scheme on the way to the tip
• Southport house prices
• Southport planning news