Bank holiday weeks run a day later, Good Friday is normal. Plus the five things the brown bin takes, garden waste at £43 and Scott Close tip hours.

Two questions come up again and again in Andover, and Test Valley Borough Council answers neither of them on the page you land on first. What happens in a bank holiday week, and why does so little go in the brown bin?

Both answers are here, with the source for each. The short version: bank holiday weeks slip by a day, and Andover has one of the shortest kerbside recycling lists in England for a reason that has nothing to do with the borough.

The quick answer

  • Black bin one week, brown bin the next. The whole borough is on the same week cycle; only your day varies.
  • Food waste is weekly, in a grey 23 litre kerbside caddy.
  • Bank holiday weeks: everything a day later, food waste included.
  • Good Friday: collections as normal.
  • Bins out by 7am, at the edge of your property.
  • The brown bin takes five things only. No glass, no pots or tubs, no cartons.
  • Garden waste: £43 a year for the first bin or sack.
  • Find your day: the council’s collection checker.

Which bins you have

Test Valley collects household waste and recycling on alternate weeks. Your black bin is emptied one week and your brown bin the next, always on the same day of the week.

  • Black 240 litre wheeled bin: household waste. It goes to an energy recovery facility and is burnt to make electricity.
  • Brown 240 litre wheeled bin: recycling. It goes to a materials recovery facility to be sorted.
  • Grey 23 litre kerbside caddy: food waste, collected every week. Flats with bin stores got a 140 litre grey-lidded wheeled bin instead. Every household also got a grey 5 litre kitchen caddy.
  • Garden waste bin or sack: fortnightly, and only if you subscribe.

The food waste service is new. Test Valley started it in October 2025, five months before the Environment Act 2021 deadline of 1 April 2026.

One thing the postcode lookup hides. The council prints a single bin calendar for the whole borough, colour-coded by week, with a row for each collection day and a box to tick your own. That means the black and brown weeks are the same everywhere in Test Valley. If your neighbour two streets over is on a black bin week, so are you, whatever day the lorry comes.

Bank holidays: a day later, except Good Friday

This is the answer that is not on any of the council’s bin web pages. It is on the printed bin collection calendar, which sets out three rules in its key:

  • Bank holiday weeks: collections will be a day later than usual.
  • Good Friday: collections as normal.
  • Food waste collections will be a day later than usual on the bank holiday weeks too.

So a bank holiday Monday pushes the entire week back one day. Monday’s round is collected on Tuesday, Tuesday’s on Wednesday, and Friday’s round lands on Saturday.

The next one is Monday 31 August 2026. The calendar marks that week as a bank holiday week and shades it as a black bin week. Friday collections that week move to Saturday 5 September.

The council’s own online checker also carries a warning worth reading: if you print your calendar, future bank holiday and Christmas arrangements may be wrong on the printout. Check the live lookup before a holiday week.

Christmas

Test Valley has not yet published its Christmas and New Year 2026/27 collection days. Its seasonal page says so plainly as of 24 August 2026, so we are not going to guess them.

What the council does say about the period, and what it did last time, is useful for planning:

  • Excess black bin waste is accepted over Christmas. You can put extra rubbish in a bag beside your black bin on your household waste collection day. This is the only time of year side waste is taken.
  • Extra recycling in cardboard boxes is collected all year, beside the brown bin, kept as dry as you can.
  • Gift wrap goes in the black bin, not the brown one. Most of it is plastic film, foil or low-grade printed paper.
  • Garden waste is suspended for two weeks over Christmas and New Year.
  • The recycling centres open every day except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.

Last year the black bin week moved earlier, not later, which caught people out: Monday 22 December 2025 was collected on Saturday 20 December, and the Thursday and Friday rounds shifted back a day. The recycling week that followed was mostly unchanged.

What actually goes in the brown bin

Five things. That is not a simplification, it is the list:

  • paper
  • cardboard
  • plastic bottles
  • tins and cans
  • aerosol cans

Everything must be clean, dry and loose. No plastic bags. That is it.

The council is explicit that these do not go in the brown bin: mixed plastics such as yoghurt pots, margarine tubs and meat trays; plastic-lined paper cups; polystyrene; shredded paper; takeaway pizza boxes; tissues and paper towels. Nor glass, foil or cartons, which go to a Local Recycling Centre instead.

Why the list is so short

Test Valley agreed in June 2022 to move to a twin-stream system called 1,2,3 Weekly, which would have taken pots, tubs, trays, cartons, foil and glass at the kerbside. Funding for the vehicles and bins was approved in April 2023. Then central government announced Simpler Recycling in October 2023 and changed the policy again in November 2024, and the council says those announcements were “unexpected, conflicting in policy direction, and ultimately impacted our ability to continue with our approved plans”.

The fix is a £50.5 million materials recovery facility at Eastleigh, approved in April 2025 and expected to be operational in 2028. Until it opens, the borough cannot collect the extra materials, and the council will not put a date on when it will.

Where the glass goes

There are more than 100 Local Recycling Centres in the borough. They take mixed glass of any colour (no ceramics, Pyrex, wine glasses, spectacles or window panes), aluminium foil, textiles, books and media.

Carton and crisp-tube banks are only at five sites, two of them in Andover: George Yard Car Park, SP10 1PD and Tesco Extra, River Way, SP10 1UZ. The other three are at North Baddesley, Romsey Bus Station and Valley Park.

Garden waste

A paid subscription, collected fortnightly. For 2026/27 the charge is:

  • £43 for the first subscription
  • £24 for each additional subscription

You also need a container. A garden waste wheeled bin costs £37.20 including VAT, or a reusable sack £2.20. If you have a spare Test Valley bin already, any colour, you can use it and order a free garden waste label. Bins and sacks arrive within 10 working days, and new subscribers should allow up to 14 days for collections to start.

Practical points the council spells out:

  • One bin or sack emptied per subscription. Sacks must not exceed 20kg.
  • Out by 7am on your collection day.
  • Frozen contents will not be collected; you get a blue tag.
  • Heavily contaminated bins are left with an orange tag.
  • The subscription is non-refundable and cannot be transferred if you move out of the borough. It moves with you within Test Valley.
  • Collections are suspended for two weeks over Christmas and New Year.

Grass, hedge cuttings, weeds, leaves, prunings, small branches and small amounts of windfall fruit are accepted. Soil, rubble, food scraps, coal ash, animal bedding and large branches or logs are not. Garden waste cannot go in the black or brown bin at all.

Bulky waste

Booked by phone only, on 01264 368000 or 01794 527700. Collection is usually within 10 working days of payment. The charges are:

  • One item: £39.00
  • Multiple items, maximum four: £70.00
  • Large amounts of garden waste: £44.00 minimum, quoted by arrangement

There is one free collection a year, of up to four items, for households receiving Council Tax Support (single person discount does not count) or exempt from Council Tax. That concession is buried at the bottom of the council’s page and is worth knowing about.

Sofas, armchairs, dining chairs, office chairs, futons, bean bags and floor cushions count as waste upholstered domestic seating and are collected separately, every Wednesday. Everything else goes on a Monday or Tuesday depending on where you live, so a mixed booking becomes two visits.

Items must be outside, at ground level, with no steps or stairs. Crews do not enter properties. Mattresses must not be soiled and must be kept dry, damaged upholstery has to be sealed with tape or plastic, and fridges and freezers must be emptied of food and drink.

Missed collections

Report it through My Test Valley.

The council’s collection policies set out what happens next. If the bin was missed because of the crew’s inattention, or the road was blocked, or some other exceptional circumstance, a return trip is made. If it was missed because you did not put it out, it waits until the next scheduled collection.

Test Valley does not publish a deadline for reporting a missed bin. Several councils give you one or two working days; this one does not say. Report it the same day and you cannot go wrong.

Extra bins

The crews empty one black bin per household unless you have an authorised extra one carrying an EBC sticker. Unauthorised extra black bins get tagged and left. To get one you apply for extra bin capacity, the application is assessed, and it is reviewed every two years. A refused application means keeping a two-week record of what your household throws away, and possibly a joint waste audit with a recycling officer.

Recycling is treated the opposite way. Anyone can put out more than one brown bin with no application at all. Bins cost £52.80 including VAT.

Assisted collections are available if frailty or incapacity makes moving a bin difficult, including the food caddy. Applications are assessed individually and reviewed every two years.

Scott Close and the household waste recycling centres

Andover’s tip is Scott Close, Walworth Business Park, SP10 5NU. The other one in the borough is Casbrook, on Bunny Lane at Timsbury near Romsey, SO51 0PG. Both are run by Hampshire County Council, not the borough.

You must book an appointment. Bookings open up to a week ahead, and same-day slots depend on availability. Opening hours change with the season:

  • 9am to 6pm, 1 April to 30 September
  • 9am to 4pm, 1 October to 28 February
  • 9am to 5pm in March

Open seven days a week except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.

Things worth knowing before you go:

  • Pedestrians are not allowed. Cyclists can book a slot.
  • A van, pick-up or trailer needs a permit. A hire van is fine if hired for three days or fewer and you bring the agreement.
  • Scott Close is the only Test Valley site taking cement-bonded asbestos and hazardous household waste. Phone the site first to book acceptance for asbestos.
  • Non-Hampshire residents are charged £13.50 per visit.
  • Hampshire currently warns that fridge and freezer acceptance cannot be guaranteed because of national recycling capacity problems, and you may be redirected to another site.

DIY waste is free up to a limit: eight 50 litre rubble sacks or four single items per household per four weeks, and you have to declare the waste’s home address when booking. Above that, Hampshire charges £3 per sack or item of soil and rubble, £6 per sack or £10 per sheet of plasterboard, and £12 per sheet of cement-bonded asbestos. Card payment only.

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