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Litter bins in South Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse

Your district council empties litter bins in relevant public areas as follows:

  • Town centre litter bins – every day
  • Outer town area litter bins – once a week
  • All other litter bins – when 75 per cent full

To report a full or broken bin, please:

On the go?  Please take your recyclables home!

Up to 70 per cent of the things that are put in public litter bins could be recycled if taken home.  Unfortunately, once recyclables are mixed with food waste and other rubbish in litter bins they can’t be recycled and must be thrown away.

We already provide some street recycling bins in the towns and larger villages.  However, they are often contaminated by food waste, liquids and dog mess bags which means that items cannot be recycled.

Please don’t put these items in public litter bins, take them home and put them in your green recycling bin instead:

  • Empty cans and bottles
  • Plastic food containers – just give them a quick rinse first
  • Newspapers and magazines
An illustration of a woman with headphones, wearing a blue hoodie and jeans, holding a "Dr Peppe" bottle. She stands next to a black litter bin and a green wheelie bin with an open lid. The main text states, "Litter bins = not recycling." The secondary text instructs, "If you want to recycle bottles, cans and plastic, please take them home!"

What can go in public litter bins:

  • sandwich packaging – please ignore the label, these can be messy or include a mix of different materials which may not be recyclable
  • soft plastics, film lids from food packaging, empty crisp packets and chocolate wrappers – you can also take these to supermarkets for recycling
  • fast food packaging
  • disposable coffee cups
  • bagged dog waste

This campaign supports our new Rethinking Waste strategy, which focuses on reducing waste overall, improving recycling and supporting residents to make more sustainable choices.

Request a new bin

Before requesting a new litter bin, please read the information on installing litter bins document. To request a new litter bin complete the litter bin request form and return it to the waste team by emailing waste.team@southandvale.gov.uk

Street Cleaning

All adopted highway roads are cleaned regularly. Busy high streets and main roads are swept more regularly than roads in residential and rural areas.

If you would like to report excess litter on the highway please contact our street cleaning contractor, Biffa, on 03000 610610 or email admin.southoxford@biffa.co.uk or admin.vale@biffa.co.uk

Litter clearance on dual carriageways can only take place in partnership with Oxfordshire County Highways or, in the case of the A34, National Highways, and often only when maintenance / a closure is scheduled on that stretch of the road. This is to ensure crews will be safe when they are carrying out the work.

Tackling littering

Our environmental enforcement officers can issue a £500 Fixed Penalty Notices to anyone, over the age of 18, dropping litter on public land or along a highway. 

If someone refuses to pay they can be taken to the local Magistrates Court for the offence and fined up to £2,500.

If you see a person dropping litter and not picking it up, please note down as many details as you can that might help us to identify them. We require the following information to commence an investigation:

  • date and time of incident
  • location of incident
  • description of person dropping litter
  • description of the item of litter
  • name and/or address of person dropping litter

Please email this information to envirocrime@southandvale.gov.uk

More information

Visit southoxon.gov.uk/recycling or whitehorsedc.gov.uk/recycling