London Borough of Hounslow

Ad - Your waste and recycling at Christmas

Your waste and recycling at Christmas

Our collection teams will be working hard over Christmas and the New Year to continue providing recycling and rubbish collections for residents. This year, our crews will enjoy four well-earned days off over the festive period, something we’ve never been able to do before! To make this happen, several changes to collection days will be implemented.

Key changes:

Other things you should know:

  • We can collect extra recycling. You need to put it in clearly labelled carrier bags alongside your recycling boxes. You need to separate materials in the same way you do for your boxes. We won't collected bags containing mixed recycling. So, in different bags should be: 
  • You can also order additional recycling boxes if you want them.
  • You need to:
    • flatten cardboard boxes,pieces must be no larger than 70x70cm to fit in our recycling vehicles.
    • No plastic wrapping and film in your recycling box -find out how to recycle these at REpeat the CYCLE)
    • Never put batteries in your recycling box – they can cause fires and endanger our crews. These can be recycled at most supermarkets.
    • Keep our crews safe this Christmas! Please make sure all aerosol cans are completely empty before recycling them in your red box – part full cans can be a fire risk.
  • We won't collect extra rubbish. You need to keep this until your next collection or take it to the Reuse and Recycling Centre. 
  • You can use our Waste Wizard tool to find out how best to dispose of items.
  • We ho-ho-hope we don't, but if you do experience a missed collection, you can report it online.
  • If you have a real Christmas tree, we'll collect it in the New Year. Or, you can take it to a Christmas tree collection point. See: Christmas tree collections.

Christmas waste and recycling collections 2025/26

Your collection day for waste and recycling will be different over the Christmas and New Year period.

See the table below. Find your usual collection day on the left and see the revised collection day on the right.

If you wish, you can look up your usual collection day. This does not show your revised collection day for the Christmas and New Year period.

Christmas tree collections

We are collecting real Christmas trees from properties in early January 2026.

We're collecting from Monday 5 January to Friday 16 January.

You can also take your Christmas tree to a collection point if you wish.

We are collecting on the scheduled garden waste collection week for your road. This will same day, but the alternate week, as your usual scheduled black wheelie bin (rubbish) collection. You can use the table below to find your Christmas tree collection day.

You need to:

  • remove lights and decorations
  • place your tree at the boundary of your property, not on the pavement, by 7am on your collection day

You tree should be under 6ft and easy for our crews to lift.

If you live in a flat

We only collect Christmas trees from properties that have a black wheelie bin collection.

If you live in a flat, please contact your managing agent or resident association. They need to arrange a single bulk collection of Christmas trees at their development or block of flats through us. They should email customerservice@hounslow.gov.uk.

You can also take your Christmas tree to a collection point if you wish.

Find your Christmas tree collection day

Your usual rubbish collection day

Your Christmas tree collection day

Monday 29 December

Monday 5 January 

Tuesday 30 December

Tuesday 6 January 

Wednesday 31 December 

Wednesday 7 January 

Thursday 1 January 

Thursday 8 January 

Friday 2 January

Friday 9 January 

Monday 5 January 

Monday 12 January 

Tuesday 6 January 

Tuesday 13 January 

Wednesday 7January 

Wednesday 14 January 

Thursday 8 January 

Thursday 15 January

Friday 9 January 

Friday 16 January 

Christmas tree collection points

If you wish, you can drop your real Christmas tree off for free at a designated collection point.

You can do this from Friday 19 December 2025 to Friday 30 January 2026.

The collection points are:

  • Hanworth Air Park: Car park opposite Hounslow Road TW13 6AA
  • Hounslow Heath: Car park opposite, Staines Road TW4 5AR 
  • Redlees Park: Worton Road car park TW7 6DW
  • Bedfont Lakes: Clockhouse Lane car park TW14 8QA
  • Space Waye: North Feltham Trading Estate, Pier Road, Feltham TW14 0TH
  • Turnham Green: opposite the church, Town Hall Avenue, W4

Make your Christmas greener

At Christmas we often create more waste (good examples are wrapping paper, packaging and food).

We want to encourage our residents to support a circular economy this Christmas, which means using less and reusing, repairing and recycling more. This is good for the planet and good for your pocket.

We have some top tips for making your Christmas greener below.

Meanwhile, the Carbon Trust website has even more tips, including interesting information about whether real or artificial trees are better for the environment.

Our top tips for a greener Christmas

Consider buying used

Instead of buying new gifts, shop for used items at:

  • charity shops
  • antique shops
  • websites like eBay, Vinted or Facebook Marketplace

You’ll save money and reduce your carbon footprint at the same time!

Shop local

Support small businesses and reduce delivery emissions.

Visit local markets or independent stores for unique sustainable gifts.

Minimise food waste

Buy only what you need and get creative with leftovers.

Dontate extras to a local food bank or share through apps like Too Good to Go, Surplus to Supper or OLIO.

Recycle unavoidable food waste in your food waste bin.

Donate

With all the new toys or clothes your family might receive over the Christmas period, consider donating, recycling or selling old or unwanted items.

Buy recyclable wrapping paper and Christmas cards

You can't recycle shiny, glittery or foil wrapping paper and Christmas cards.

Buy wrapping paper that you can scrunch. If it stays scrunched, you can recycle it.

When you're recycling wrapping paper, remove all sticky tape, labels and decorations.

Get LED lights for your tree

Swap to LED Christmas lights, which use up to 80% less energy..

If every UK household did this, we could save £11 million and 29,000 tonnes of CO2 in just 12 days!

Recycle more

Rethink, reduce, reuse, recycle. Our priority should always be to buy, consume and waste less.

You might not know we can collect these common household items from your home:

You can use our Waste Wizard tool to find out what you can recycle and how.

Advertisement

December 9, 2025