General Waste (Green or Metal) Bin

Important Information

Due to Coronavirus (COVID-19) there have been changes made to this service.   For further advice and guidance please read our dedicated services update page. 

We thank you for your patience during this time.

What is it?

The general waste service should be used to collect those items that cannot be collected by the other council recycling services. 

Dependant on the property type, the type of bin used for general waste will differ.

• Houses who present their bins to the kerbside will use a green 240 litre wheelie bins
• Flats/tenements may use a mixture of wheelie bins and traditional steel dustbins which are collected by crews from communal areas
• Multi-storey properties use large 1280 litre bins predominantly located within bin stores which are serviced direct by collection crews.

What can go into the general waste bin?

Any items that cannot go into a recycling a blue, purple, brown bin or grey food caddy, can go into a general waste bin other than hazardous, bulky or electrical items and batteries.  

Information on what can be collected within the other bins can be found in the related content area.

What should not be placed within the general waste bin?

• Mixed papers - newspapers, magazines, journals, junk mail, brochures, catalogues, directories, yellow pages
• Cardboard - cardboard boxes, card packaging
• Plastic bottles - milk bottles, drinks bottles, sauce bottles, shampoo bottles, cleaning product bottles
• Food and drink cans - steel cans, aluminium cans, food tins, empty aerosol cans
• Wine Bottles
• Beer bottles
• Jam jars
• Coffee jars
• Sauce bottles
• Hazardous waste
• Bulky waste
• Electrical items
• Batteries

Facilities are available at each of the councils household waste recycling centres for the collection of hazardous household waste, electrical items and batteries.  Further information on arranging a bulk waste collection is available here

What happens to general waste bin contents?

The majority of general waste is processed at the Glasgow Recycling and Renewable Energy Centre  (GRREC) which you can read more about at the Transforming Waste in Glasgow website with a small amount of material also disposed at a privately operated landfill site.

The GRREC uses state-of-the-art technology to extract recyclables from waste which would otherwise be disposed and recovers energy from material which cannot be recycled. The facility has been fully operational since January 2019.

How do I report a damaged general waste bin?

If your general waste (green) bin has been damaged, during collection only, you can use our online form to request a replacement.