How to Use BinBosh
Finding your bins, setting up reminders, and earning StreetCred.
1. Finding Your Street
If your neighbours have already set up bin schedules for your street, you can adopt them in seconds:
- Enter your postcode on the homepage
- Browse the schedules your neighbours have set up
- Tap “Use this schedule” on each bin type you want
- Head to your dashboard — you'll be asked to enable reminders so you always know which bin goes out
2. Setting Up Your Street
If no schedules exist for your street yet, you can create them. Here's what you'll need:
- Street name— just the street, no house numbers
- Bin type— General waste, Recycling, Garden, Food, Glass, Paper & Card, or Other
- Bin colour— the colour of the bin your council uses
- Collection day — which day of the week
- Frequency— weekly or fortnightly
- Last collection date — the most recent date your bins were collected (must be in the past)
No sign-up required — just enter your postcode and create. Once you set up a schedule, your neighbours can find it by searching the same postcode, adopt it, and get reminders too.
Made a mistake? You can edit your schedules from the dashboard anytime before neighbours adopt them — just tap the pencil icon on any bin card.
3. Your Dashboard
Once you've adopted schedules, your dashboard shows everything at a glance.
- List & calendar views — bins sorted by next collection, or a month grid with colour-coded dots. Tap any day to see what's being collected.
- Check-in button — tap on collection day to confirm your bins are out. Builds your streak and earns StreetCred.
- Streak display — once you hit 2 consecutive check-ins, your streak count and multiplier appear on each bin card.
- Progress bar — your tier progress is shown in the dashboard header and updates in real time as you earn points.
- Celebrations — every point award triggers a bin-lid celebration. Milestones at 4, 8, 12, 26, and 52 check-ins get enhanced celebrations with streak-specific messages.
- Edit schedules — if you created a schedule and no one has adopted it yet, tap the pencil icon to change the collection day, frequency, colour, or notes.
- Recycling tools — quick-access tiles for “Which bin?” search, the Recycling Symbols decoder, and the Guides hub.
- Bank holiday overrides — councils sometimes shift collection days during bank holiday weeks. If you know the actual day, vote to update the calendar for your whole street. Three neighbours confirming the same day locks it in.
- Push notifications — enable reminders and we'll ping you the evening before each collection.
- Calendar sync — subscribe in Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, or Outlook. Automatic updates when the schedule changes.
- Email reminders — get a summary email the night before collection. Premium feature — see Premium.
4. StreetCred
StreetCred (SC) is BinBosh's community reputation system. Every action that helps your neighbourhood earns points. For the full points table and badge catalogue, see the StreetCred page.
Earning points
Check-ins, votes, reports, creating schedules, upgrading your account, and referring friends all earn SC. See the full points table →
Streak multipliers
Check in consistently to multiply your earnings: 1× base, 1.5× at 2, 2× at 4, 2.5× at 8, 3×at 12. Streaks count collection cycles, not calendar weeks — fortnightly users build streaks at their own pace.
Streak freeze
Miss a collection and your streak survives. Free users get 1 grace; Premium users get 2. Grace regenerates every 8 consecutive check-ins and resets to maximum on the 1st of each month.
Shareable streak cards
At milestones (4, 8, 12, 26, 52), tap “Share your streak” to generate a branded card showing your streak, street name, and multiplier. Share to WhatsApp, Instagram, or anywhere.
Reputation tiers
Your lifetime SC determines your tier: Bin Starter → Bin Regular (100) → Bin Boss (500) → Bin Legend (1,500). Tiers never drop — they're based on lifetime SC, not your spendable balance. A progress bar in the dashboard header shows how close you are to the next tier.
5. Redeeming StreetCred
- How to redeem: go to your reputation page → tap “Redeem 500 SC” → confirm. Premium activates instantly.
- Split balance:your tier is based on lifetime SC (never drops). Redemption spends from your redeemable balance — a separate pot that refills as you earn.
- Stacking: already on Premium? Your free month stacks onto the end of your current subscription.
- Repeatable: keep earning, keep redeeming. A progress bar on the reputation page shows how close you are.
6. Refer a Friend
- Your referral link: find it on your reputation page. Share it anywhere — the link is permanent.
- How it works: when a friend creates an account and adopts a schedule via your link, you earn 50 SC and they get a 25 SC welcome bonus.
- Monthly cap: up to 5 referral rewards per month.
8. Recycling Guides
Not sure what goes in each bin? BinBosh has three free guides to help:
- Recycling Symbols — 19 UK packaging symbols explained. Search by code (PAP 21, C/PAP 81) or browse visually. Each symbol page tells you exactly which bin to use.
- Common Recycling Questions — 20 everyday items that confuse people. Pizza boxes, crisp packets, coffee cups — quick verdicts with council-specific context.
- Food Waste Guide — what goes in the caddy, how to line it, and tips for keeping it clean.
All guides are at binbosh.co.uk/guides. You can also search any item from the council recycling search for area-specific answers.
9. Privacy & Account
- Anonymous by default — browse and find your bin day without creating an account. Sign-in only triggers when you take a write action like adopting a schedule.
- Ghost Protocol — delete your account and everything goes with it — subscriptions, reputation, badges, tokens, payment data, auth record. Nothing left behind. Privacy policy →
- Settings— manage your notifications, postcodes, and subscriptions from the settings page.