Starting your service

Once your address checks out, starting service is three short steps.

You can also start from Sign up at the top right of any page, without checking your address first. If it turns out no operator covers your street, you'll be told at step 2 and put on the list — see below.

1. Create your account

You'll need an email address and a password, or you can continue with Google. The account holder is an adult — that's who the operator deals with about scheduling and money.

Continuing with Google skips the password. You'll be asked to agree to the Terms on the next screen rather than on the form itself, because the trip to Google and back can't carry a tick box with it.

2. Finish setup

On the welcome screen you confirm your name and your service address: the house whose cans get rolled. It's pre-filled from the address you looked up, so usually there's nothing to change.

Once an address is picked it appears on its own, with Confirm your spot on the map underneath and whether anyone covers it below that. It works exactly like the coverage lookup: open the map to drag the pin, and it opens by itself if we could only place you to the street. Clearing the box removes all of it, so you can start again.

Not ready to finish? Cancel at the top of the screen takes you to your dashboard, and your account stays. The dashboard keeps an Add address button that brings you straight back here whenever you are.

If nobody covers your street yet

You'll see a warning under the address, and you can still finish. Your account and address are kept, and your street goes on the list of the ones people are asking for — which is what we look at when deciding where to open next. You don't have to do anything else.

Nothing is scheduled and nothing is charged in the meantime. When a crew does start up nearby, we'll get in touch, and your dashboard will offer a plan.

3. Wait for approval

Your operator has to accept you before the first pickup. Until they do, your dashboard shows Awaiting approval.

This is normally quick — they're checking that your street fits the route they already walk. You'll see your first scheduled pickups appear as soon as they approve.

We email you either way, so you don't have to keep checking. If you're approved, the email names your operator, your first pickup date, and what you owe. If you've installed the app, that one arrives as a notification too — it's the one message worth interrupting you for.

If they can't take you on, the email says so plainly and points you back at the coverage check to look for another crew. It usually means the route is full or your street sits outside where they work.

If you don't finish

You can stop partway — plenty of people do — and your account stays exactly as you left it. We'll email you a day later to say there's one step to go, and once more a week after that. Then we stop, and we say so in the second one.

Finishing is always the same thing: add your address, so we can show you which crews cover your street.

If it doesn't go through

Could not reach Rollout under the button means the request never arrived — usually a patchy connection. No account was created, so try again once you have signal.

Changing your mind

You can pause or cancel at any time from your dashboard, including before you've been approved.