Eastbourne Christmas bins: two Friday rounds will move

Eastbourne Borough Council has not yet published its Christmas 2026 bin collection changes. What it did last year is on the record, and it tells you which households are most likely to be affected this time: the council keeps collecting on ordinary bank holidays and only moves the rounds that fall on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, usually to a Saturday.

The quick answer

• 2026 dates are not out yet. We will update this page as soon as the council publishes them.
• Christmas Day (25 December) and New Year’s Day (1 January 2027) are both Fridays this year, so Friday collections are the ones to watch.
• Last year three rounds moved to Saturdays, one of them five days early. Every other Eastbourne collection ran as normal.

What happened last Christmas

The councils’ Christmas and New Year bin collections page still carries the 2025/26 arrangements for Eastbourne. Collections due on:

The council’s own wording was that “all other collections in Eastbourne are unaffected”. The Christmas Day round is the one that catches people out: it was brought forward to the Saturday before Christmas, not pushed back.

Where the bank holidays fall this year

East Sussex County Council’s 2026/27 school calendar lists the bank holidays:

• Friday 25 December 2026, Christmas Day
• Monday 28 December 2026, Boxing Day (substitute day, because 26 December is a Saturday)
• Friday 1 January 2027, New Year’s Day

Eastbourne’s printed 2026 calendar says collections “take place as usual on all bank holidays”, which is why the ordinary August and May bank holidays pass without changes (see our Eastbourne bin collection days page). On last year’s pattern, the rounds most likely to move are the two Friday collections on 25 December and 1 January. Whether the council also moves anything around the Monday 28 December substitute day is not something last year’s arrangements can tell us, because Boxing Day fell on a Friday then. That is our reading of the pattern, not an announcement: wait for the council’s list before you change your routine.

Christmas trees

Last winter the council ran free drop-off points for real trees from 15 December 2025 to 23 January 2026. Take off all decorations, stands and pots first. The 2025/26 drop-off points were:

• Princes Park, Wartling Road, on the old bring-site parking area next to the barrier into the funfair field
• Archery Park, on the grass at Willoughby and Churchdale Road
• Hampden Park, the Decoy Drive entrance, on the right before the café
• Gildredge Park, entrance via the Goffs next to the tennis club café
• Sevenoaks Recreation Ground, in the car park off Sevenoaks Road
• Atlantic Drive, the sewage works east car park via the roundabout
• Fisherman’s Green, on the right-hand side of the car park
• Holly Place, in front of Willingdon Trees Community Centre

If you pay for the garden waste service, you can cut the tree up and put it in the brown bin instead, as long as the trunk is no more than 100mm across.

Extra rubbish over the holidays

Bins still need to be at the boundary of your property by 7am on collection day. For the overflow, the council points residents to the household waste recycling site at St Philip’s Avenue, which is run by East Sussex County Council and must be booked in advance. Its hours, booking rules and van days are on our bin collection days page. The county has not yet published Christmas opening days for the site; its St Philip’s Avenue page is where they will appear.

To get your own dates as a PDF or a phone calendar file, use the postcode lookup at Environment First, the council’s contractor. Once the Christmas changes are published, the downloaded calendar is the quickest way to check your street.

Still to be confirmed

• The 2026/27 Christmas and New Year collection changes. Expected in late November or early December on the councils’ Christmas page. We will check from mid November.
• This winter’s tree drop-off dates and sites. Last year’s ran from 15 December.
• Christmas opening at St Philip’s Avenue, from East Sussex County Council.

If you are travelling over the holidays, our Eastbourne Christmas trains and buses page covers what is known so far, and parking in Eastbourne has the car park charges.