By the Bin Night Tonight team · Updated July 2026
Bins are nobody's first thought when moving, right up until the kitchen fills with packing debris and no one knows which night the truck comes. Five minutes of bin admin in the first week saves a fortnight of overflowing rubbish. Here is the checklist.
Wheelie bins belong to the property, not the resident. They are supplied by the council against the address, so you do not take bins with you when you move, and the new place should already have its set. If a previous resident did take them, or the place is a new build with no bins at all, order them from the council; most councils supply the standard set free or roll the cost into rates, with delivery inside a week or two.
Check the bins that are there: cracked lids, broken wheels and missing pins are all things councils repair or replace free. Doing it in week one beats discovering a broken wheel on a full bin.
Your bin day is set by your new address, not your suburb, and two streets apart can mean two different nights. Search the new address on Bin Night Tonight and you get the collection schedule for every bin at that property, which beats asking removalists, neighbours or the letting agent.
Note which bins alternate. Nearly everywhere runs general waste weekly with recycling and organics alternating fortnightly, so the first week at a new place is also about learning which fortnight you are in. Getting the recycling week wrong is the classic new resident move; a quick glance at what the neighbours put out is the traditional confirmation.
Councils differ on things people assume are universal. If you moved from another council area, do not assume the old rules travelled with you:
Flattened cardboard is fine in the yellow bin, but a whole move worth of boxes will not fit in one fortnightly cycle. Options that beat weeks of drip feeding: give boxes away on local marketplace groups while they are still folded flat (moving boxes are permanently in demand), or run a load to the transfer station, where clean cardboard is usually free or cheap to drop. Packing paper goes in the yellow bin; bubble wrap and plastic film do not, they are soft plastics and belong in the red bin unless you have a local collection option.
At the old address, aim to time the final cleanout so full bins get collected before settlement or the end of the lease. A bin left overflowing is a common bond deduction item for renters. If the volumes are beyond the bins, a booked hard rubbish collection at the old address or a tip run is cheaper than a bond claim. And leave the bins behind, empty if you can manage it; the next resident will judge you by them.
Not for standard bin collection; the service attaches to the property. You only need to contact the council to order missing bins, change bin sizes, or set up optional services like a garden bin where those are opt in.
Order replacements through the council. Policies differ: many councils replace missing bins free after a declaration, others charge a fee that may be recoverable from the seller through your conveyancer if bins were included in the contract.
Search the address on this site; the schedule shows the actual next dates for each bin rather than just the weekday, which settles the which week question immediately.