Ealing is the borough where the council route is genuinely worth trying first. £30 for six items undercuts every neighbouring council we checked except Harrow’s once-a-year free slot, there is no cap on how many collections you book in a year, and you pick your own date when you book.
So this guide does something the usual man-and-van article does not: it tells you to use the council where the council is better. What it also does is set out, precisely, where that service stops — because the gap is wider in Ealing than the low price suggests.
The refusal list runs to sixteen named categories, plus anything the crew judges unsafe, and it includes almost everything a renovation or a garage clear-out generates. Council charges are reviewed annually and collection rounds change, so confirm the current details on ealing.gov.uk before you rely on them.
Bulky waste: £30 for six items, as often as you like
At £30 for up to six items — £5 an item — with no cap on bookings, Ealing charges less than every neighbouring council we checked for a paid collection. Only Harrow’s once-a-year free slot beats it:
| Council | Cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Ealing | £30 | Up to 6 items, unlimited bookings per year |
| Harrow | Free once a year, then £59.70 | Up to 4 items free every 12 months (4 more for £28.45); after that £59.70 for 1–4 items |
| Hillingdon | £53 (£39 over-65s) | Up to 6 items; fridges and freezers not currently collected |
| Slough | £54 minimum | £19 an item, 5 items max — one or two items cost the minimum |
| Watford | £57 | Up to 3 bulky items in one collection |
Neighbouring charges were checked on each council’s own website on 24 September 2026.
Collections run between 7am and 3pm on the day you choose at booking — or the next available slot if you express no preference. The council notes there may be a short wait for an appointment at busy times. There are no discounts and no refunds on the service, and more than six items is quoted separately at an agreed rate: you ask for the quote through Ealing’s My Account, it arrives within five working days, and it lapses if you have not paid within 21 days.
What counts as one item matters, because six fill up faster than people expect:
- A bed base and mattress count as two items
- A box of smaller things counts as one, as long as one person can lift it
- Broken furniture counts as one only if it is bundled, bagged or boxed — loose pieces are counted separately
- One fridge or freezer per household, and every item must be something two people can carry
Where the items have to be
Out by 7am on the day, at the front of the property where the crew can see them — inside your boundary at pavement level, but not on the pavement itself. Ealing will not collect from back gardens, from red routes such as the A40 or the North Circular (it points red-route residents to the West London Waste Authority bulky service instead), or from commercial premises. In a block of flats, put items outside the block by 7am on the collection day only, with a note saying they are for collection by Greener Ealing and your collection number — without it they can be treated as fly-tipping.
For six sellable-sized household items, at £5 an item, the council route is better value than any private operator including us. Book it.
Blue and black on alternate weeks, food every week
| Container | What it takes | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| Blue wheelie bin | Household recycling | Every 2 weeks |
| Black wheelie bin | Rubbish that cannot be recycled | Every 2 weeks, alternating with blue |
| Green caddy | All food waste | Every week |
| Green garden bin or sacks | Garden waste — subscription only | Every 2 weeks, paused in winter |
The pattern is recycling and food waste one week, rubbish and food waste the next. The food caddy therefore goes out every single week regardless of which wheelie bin is due — the detail most people get wrong when they move into the borough.
Standard bins are 180 litres, which holds around four bin bags. A larger 360-litre bin is available on approval for large households or medical need, but Ealing asks you to demonstrate that you are already recycling properly before it will upsize your rubbish bin.
Putting bins out early can be treated as fly-tipping
Ealing warns that presenting rubbish or recycling more than one day outside your collection day "may be seen as fly tipping". On estates and flats the council asks for waste out in the morning, or as late as possible the evening before. It is an enforcement position, not just guidance — worth knowing before you leave bags out on a Friday for a Monday round.
The refusal list — where £30 stops being relevant
Ealing will not collect any of the following, at any price, through the bulky service:
- DIY waste and builders’ rubbish
- Bricks, concrete, earth, sand and gravel
- Iron baths, boilers and chemical storage tanks
- Pianos
- Asbestos
- Paint tins, oil and gas cylinders
- Tyres and batteries
- Dead animals and domestic pets
- Anything that has been in contact with mould or a pest infestation
- Anything else the crew judges could harm them
Read that list against a real job. Take out a bathroom and you have an iron bath, tiles and rubble — none of it collectable. Replace a boiler and the old one stays where it is. Clear a garage and the paint tins, the old tyres and the bag of sand are all refused while the rest goes for £30.
There is no kerbside route in Ealing for any of it. The options are the Greenford Road reuse and recycling centre under its own rules, or a paid collection. Ealing’s own answer for small amounts of DIY waste is the centre’s free allowance: two 50-litre rubble bags, or one item no larger than 2m × 0.75m × 0.7m — the Greenford Road guide covers what happens past that.
Garden waste: £75 for 23 collections
Ealing’s garden subscription runs April 2026 to March 2027 and gives 23 collections for £75 if you sign up before the start of April. A £50 concessionary rate is available to eligible households — those on means-tested benefits or over 65.
Joining part-way through the year is now pro-rata. From October 2026 it is £29.35 for nine collections, or £19.57 on the concessionary rate.
Unusually, you choose your container:
| Option | What you get |
|---|---|
| 240-litre green wheeled bin | The standard choice |
| 3 × 90-litre reusable sacks | Better where there is no space for a bin |
| 25 or 75 compostable sacks | For occasional or one-off garden clearing |
Collections are fortnightly except in winter: they pause in December 2026 and restart in February 2027, an eight-week gap that is shorter than the eleven-week pause the borough used to run.
Against neighbours — Slough £55, Watford £62.40, Buckinghamshire £65, Harrow £69, Hillingdon £77, Maidenhead £89 — Ealing’s £75 sits mid-table, and the sack option is the genuinely useful differentiator for a flat or a small courtyard.
Where Ealing’s service runs out
Given how cheap the bulky service is, the honest list of reasons to pay someone else is short and specific:
- Anything on the refusal list — DIY waste, rubble, baths, boilers, tyres, paint
- More than six items and you would rather not wait for a quote
- You cannot get it to the kerb — the council collects from outside, not from the room it is in
- You need it gone today — bulky slots queue at busy times
- A full house, garage or probate clearance — beyond the service entirely
We cover Ealing, Greenford, Northolt, Southall, Acton and Hanwell. One standard Luton load is capped at 22.7 cu yd and 1,000 kg; larger or heavier jobs are quoted as multiple trips:
| Load | Approx. volume | Our fixed price |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum charge | 1.5 cu yd | £95 |
| ¼ van | 7 cu yd | £195 |
| ½ van | 14 cu yd | £320 |
| ¾ van | 18 cu yd | £405 |
| Full van | 22.7 cu yd | £495 |
The one thing we do that the £30 service structurally cannot: we carry it out of the room. Ealing collects from the kerb, so a sofa on the second floor is still your problem at £30.
What goes in the blue bin — and the white tag
Cardboard and thin card, paper, envelopes and junk mail, newspapers and magazines, plastic bottles, pots and tubs, metal tins and cans, aerosol cans and clean foil, glass bottles and jars, and food and drink cartons.
What must not go in — this is the difference between a collected bin and a rejected one:
- Food waste — it goes in the green caddy, collected weekly
- Garden waste — neither bin takes it
- Plastic bags, crisp packets and bread bags — supermarket front-of-store only
- Textiles and batteries — bagged on top of the bin, never inside it
Ealing enforces with a white tag rather than a refusal notice. A tagged bin means either the wrong contents or the wrong position; you have to remove the offending items and the tag before the next collection day, and the council states plainly that leaving them in place risks another missed collection. Because the reporting window is only twenty hours wide, a tag on a Friday is effectively a fortnight’s wait.
How this compares to the neighbouring councils
Seven neighbouring authorities run seven genuinely different services. If you have moved recently, this is usually the source of the confusion — the rules you are used to may simply not apply here.
| Council | Collection frequency | Garden waste/yr | Missed-bin window |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harrow | Fortnightly (food weekly) | £69 | After 5pm, within 48h |
| Hillingdon | Weekly | £77 | After 1.30pm, within 72h |
| Buckinghamshire | Fortnightly (food weekly) | £65 | 6pm–midnight next day |
| Watford | Fortnightly (food weekly) | £62.40 | After 5pm, within 24h |
| Windsor & Maidenhead | Recycling weekly, rubbish fortnightly | £89 | Next day, within 48h |
| Slough | Fortnightly (all streams) | £55 + £52 bin | After 7pm, within 2 working days |
| Ealing | Fortnightly (food weekly) | £75 | 5pm same day – 1pm next day |
Ealing has the tightest missed-bin window of the seven — 5pm on collection day to 1pm the next, about twenty hours, against Hillingdon’s 72. It also has the cheapest paid bulky collection of any neighbouring council we checked, at £30 for six items with no annual cap, which is the one service on this table genuinely worth using over a private collection.
Two things are worth taking from that table. First, the missed-bin reporting windows are all different — from Ealing’s twenty hours to Hillingdon’s 72 — and missing yours means waiting for the next scheduled collection. Second, garden waste ranges from £55 to £89 for a broadly similar fortnightly service, and Slough’s headline £55 becomes £107 in year one if you need to buy the bin.
Ealing bulky waste and bin collection FAQs
How much is bulky waste collection in Ealing?
£30 for up to six items, with no limit on the number of collections you book in a year. More than six items is quoted separately at an agreed rate. There are no discounts or refunds.
How many items can I put out for an Ealing bulky collection?
Up to six on one booking. A bed base and mattress count as two items, a box of smaller things counts as one if one person can lift it, and broken furniture counts as one only if it is bundled, bagged or boxed. Ealing takes one fridge or freezer per household.
What time does Ealing collect bulky waste?
Between 7am and 3pm on the day you booked. Items must be out by 7am at the front of the property, inside your boundary at pavement level but not on the pavement, and the council does not contact you before it arrives.
Will Ealing collect bulky waste from a red route or a back garden?
No. Ealing does not collect from red routes such as the A40 or the North Circular, from back gardens, or from commercial premises. Red-route residents are pointed to the West London Waste Authority bulky waste service instead.
What will Ealing not collect?
DIY waste, builders' rubbish, bricks, concrete, earth, sand and gravel, iron baths, boilers and chemical storage tanks, pianos, asbestos, paint tins, oil, gas cylinders, tyres, batteries, dead animals, and anything that has been in contact with mould or a pest infestation.
How often are bins collected in Ealing?
Blue recycling and black rubbish bins are collected fortnightly on alternate weeks — recycling one week, rubbish the next. The green food waste caddy is collected every week alongside whichever bin is due.
How much is garden waste collection in Ealing?
£75 a year for 23 collections if you subscribe before the start of April, or £50 on the concessionary rate. You can choose a 240-litre green bin, three 90-litre reusable sacks, or compostable sacks.
When does Ealing garden waste stop for winter?
Collections pause in December 2026 and restart in February 2027 — an eight-week gap, down from the eleven weeks the borough previously ran.
Can I put extra bags next to my Ealing bin?
Ealing warns that presenting waste more than one day outside your collection day may be treated as fly tipping. On estates the council asks for waste out in the morning or as late as possible the night before.
Is it cheaper to use Ealing council or a man and van?
For up to six ordinary household items that you can get to the kerb yourself, the council at £30 is cheaper than anyone, including us. Use it. A collection is worth paying for when the items are on the refusal list, cannot be carried down, or are needed gone the same day.
On Ealing’s refusal list?
Rubble, baths, boilers, paint and builders’ waste — the things the £30 service will not take. Same-day collection across Ealing, Greenford, Southall, Acton and Northolt, carried out from the room it is in, from £95.