Medway Council provides a weekly refuse collection service for black plastic sacks, which you will need to buy from local stores, as they are not provided by the council.

The council does deliver blue sacks for recycling to every house and flat in Medway every 13 weeks, however. Find out more about recycling in Medway.

Unless exceptional arrangements are made, residents should place their refuse on the boundary of their properties by 7am on the day of collection. During holidays, changes to the scheduled refuse collection are notified through the council's own paper, Medway Matters, by notices in the local press and on this website.

Residents are asked to secure their rubbish and only put it out on the day of collection, which minimises the possibility of bags being torn open by animals and reduces the risk of littering.

An assisted refuse collection service is provided free to residents who, through illness or infirmity, are unable to put out their refuse and do not have anyone else to help them.

Please note that if your waste or recycling are missed, you must notify the council within 24 hours.

The collection rounds are shown in outline on the map on the right.

A more detailed view of the collection rounds is available from the Medway Map service. Having selected this service, follow these steps to find the collection day for a particular postcode:

• enter the postcode in the Quick Search box and select "Go";
• select the "to map" link on the next page - the map will appear;
• select the "Maps" drop-down menu and choose "Refuse and Recycling";
• select "Refuse collection day label" and then select "Draw Map";
• the map will appear with the day of the collection round shown (use the zoom feature if necessary).

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