Caddies reach every household in August and September. The weekly collections they are for do not start until 1 April 2027, seven months later.

Two food waste caddies are being delivered to every household in Harborough district during August and September. The weekly collections they are meant for do not begin until 1 April 2027. (Harborough District Council)

That leaves most residents storing a 23-litre outdoor bin and a kitchen caddy for around seven months before either is emptied. The council confirms the delivery runs across August and September and will take six to eight weeks, and separately confirms the April 2027 start date on the same page.

The caddies are not a mistake and nothing has gone wrong with the delivery. The start date moved.

The date slipped by five months

In March the council announced this service would begin on 3 November 2026. Its own announcement at the time said collections would start then, “subject to the delivery of its new food waste vehicle fleet”. (Harborough District Council, 24 March 2026)

The council’s current published position is 1 April 2027, which is a Thursday. Asked on its own FAQ page why collections are not starting sooner, the council answers directly:

“This start date allows us to introduce the service with the correct vehicles and fully trained crews, ensuring a smooth, reliable and cost-effective service from day one.”

(Food Waste FAQs, Harborough District Council)

There is a contract behind the timing too. The March announcement said the council’s existing waste contractor would run the new service and distribute the caddies “until 31 March 2027”, with arrangements after that date being settled through the procurement of a new Environmental Services contract. April 2027 is the first day of that new contract period.

What the law actually required

The national rules are firmer than the council’s pages suggest. Harborough’s food waste page says councils in England are “required by the Government to introduce weekly food waste recycling collections in 2026”.

The government’s own guidance sets the deadline for weekly household food waste collections in England as 31 March 2026, a date that has already passed. (Simpler recycling: household recycling in England, GOV.UK)

Some councils were given longer. The Environment Act 2021 (Commencement No. 9 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2024 carry a schedule listing every English waste collection authority allowed a later start, and the date each one has to meet. Thirty-one authorities are on it. The extensions were granted mainly where long-term waste disposal contracts ran past the deadline, and they stretch from 1 June 2026 for Blackburn with Darwen to 1 February 2043 for City of York and North Yorkshire. (Schedule, SI 2024/639, legislation.gov.uk)

Harborough District Council is not on that list. Neither is any other Leicestershire authority. We checked the schedule as made and as currently in force, and the two later commencement instruments made since (2025 and 2026) do not add any authorities to it.

On the published record, then, Harborough had a statutory deadline of 31 March 2026 and will start collecting on 1 April 2027, a year and a day later. The council has not published an explanation that engages with the legal deadline, and we have seen no indication that Defra has raised the delay with it.

The council is receiving over £1 million from Defra towards the caddies and the collection vehicles.

Timeline of Harborough food waste collection dates: 31 March 2026 national deadline for weekly food waste collections, with Harborough not among the 31 councils granted longer; 24 March 2026 the council announces a 3 November 2026 start subject to vehicle delivery; August to September 2026 caddies delivered to every household over six to eight weeks; 3 November 2026 the original start date, no longer in place, with the current waste contract running to 31 March 2027; 1 April 2027 weekly collections begin. A bracket marks the roughly seven month gap between delivery and first collection.
Graphic by Harborough News.

Harborough has done this before

The district ran a food waste collection service once already. It was trialled, then rolled out district-wide in 2010, and suspended in 2012. The council’s explanation is that the tonnage collected was low and “the financial model did not work anymore”, partly because residents changed their behaviour and threw less food away once they could see how much they were discarding.

The council says attitudes have shifted in the fourteen years since, and that a recent bin analysis found food waste made up a significant proportion of general rubbish.

What it means for you

Your caddies will turn up between now and the end of September, on any weekday, and you do not need to be in. If you are away for a long stretch, the council suggests asking a neighbour to take them in.

Then put them somewhere out of the way until spring 2027. Some things worth knowing before you do:

  • You get four things: a 7-litre kitchen caddy, a 23-litre lockable outdoor caddy, one roll of 52 compostable bags, and an instruction leaflet.
  • The 52 bags are all you get. After that you buy your own, or reuse ordinary plastic bags from salad, bread, vegetables or deliveries. The council specifically says you do not have to buy compostable liners.
  • Never use black bags or black liners. They are harder to separate at the processing plant.
  • Both caddies lock. Move the handle to the back, press it down onto the lid, then pull it right over to the front until it clicks.
  • Council tax will not go up because of the service, the council says.
  • Assisted collections carry over automatically. If you already have one, it will cover your food caddy without a separate request.
  • Flats and communal properties get the 7-litre kitchen caddy plus at least one 140-litre wheeled bin per bin store.
  • Both caddies are dishwasher-safe, though realistically only the kitchen one will fit.

When collections do start, they will be weekly, on the same day as your existing bins but on a separate vehicle, and your caddy needs to be out by 7am. General rubbish and recycling stay fortnightly.

What goes in: meat and fish including bones, raw or cooked; fruit, vegetables and peelings; leftovers and plate scrapings; dairy; eggshells; pasta and rice; bread, cake and pastries; tea bags and coffee grounds; pet food; and out-of-date food with the packaging removed.

What does not: any food packaging, even the compostable kind; black bags or liners; plastic other than the liner bag; glass; tins, cans and foil; any liquid, including oil and liquid fat; pet faeces; and garden waste or flowers.

If you already compost at home you can carry on. Keep garden waste and uncooked fruit and vegetable scraps for the compost heap, and put the things that should never go in it, meat, fish, bones, cooked food and dairy, in the caddy instead.

The collected waste goes to an anaerobic digestion plant to be turned into renewable energy and fertiliser rather than to landfill.

For the district’s other services, see our guides to Market Harborough house prices, roadworks and travel and planning news.