Blue bin - food waste recycling service

The blue bin scheme is a weekly collection of kitchen scraps, which are then composted. It's available to all street properties (houses or low-rise buildings facing on to a street) in Hackney that receive the green box recycling service.

Newsflash: compostable liners for the blue bins are now available free of charge to Hackney residents - find out more about the free liners here.

Collection times

Blue bins are collected on the same days as your green box. To see the collection schedule for your area, please download our collection days spreadsheet (Excel file, 125KB - if you do not have Excel on your computer, you can download a free Excel viewer from Microsoft).

Your blue box should be placed out at street level by 7:30am on the day of collection, at the front boundary of your property where it can be easily seen and accessed by the collection crew.

How do I use my blue bins?

1. Place your small blue bin in your kitchen, and line it with a free compostable liner.
2. When the liner is full, tie the ends and put it in your large blue bin outside.
3. Your food waste will be collected weekly from 7.30am on your collection day.

Step-by-step diagram for using a blue bin.

What can I recycle using my blue bin?

The following materials are accepted:

Bones
Bread, pasta and rice
Dairy products and egg shells
Fish (raw and cooked)
Fruit
Meat (raw and cooked)
Tea and ground coffee
Vegetable peelings

What can't I recycle using my blue bin?

Please do not put the following items in your blue bin.

Garden waste
Glass bottles
Plastic bags
Tins and cans

Compostable liners for the blue bins

Compostable liners are now available free of charge - a 6 month supply is being given to every household on the service, which should make it easier and cleaner for you to recycle your food waste. You can find out more about liners on our compostable blue bin liners page.