Commercial waste

New Government regulations regarding business waste

On 21 October 2023 the UK Government announced a new recycling legislation called Simpler Recycling.

What this means for businesses

The recycling changes mean that businesses with 10 or more full time equivalent (FTE) employees will be required by law to separate both dry recycling and food waste for collection by March 31 2025.

Dry recycling includes:

• hard plastics
• paper and card
• glass
• steel and aluminium foil, trays, tins and cans

The dry recycling can be collected co-mingled in one bin so no need for multiple separate containers. Food waste will require a separate collection service.

Upcoming implementation dates

To ensure compliance, businesses will be required to separate their waste into 3 bins - general waste, dry recycling and food waste.

Businesses will need to comply by March 31 2025.

Micro-firms will have extra time to implement the new requirements – they must comply by 31 March 2027.

A micro-firm includes fewer than 10 FTE employees.

FTE employment is measured per enterprise rather than per unit, therefore multi-branch enterprises that employ over 10 FTE employees across multiple units are not within scope of this exemption.

Next steps

We are pleased to announce that our new food waste service will be available to South Norfolk businesses from 1 April 2025!

In response to government legislation requiring separate food waste collections, all businesses with more than 10 full-time employees will need to comply by 31 March 2025.

We have designed our service to help your business meet these requirements and manage food waste efficiently. We encourage you to start planning now to ensure smooth compliance with the new regulations. Should you have any questions or require further clarification on these guidelines, please do not hesitate to contact us.

For more information on the latest government guidelines, please visit the official government website or WRAP's website.

Reducing business waste

As a business, the main regulations you need to comply with are the Environmental Protection Act 1990. This imposes a duty of care on your company when it comes to disposing of your commercial waste – including that sent for recycling.

When it comes to waste recycling, under these regulations you must:

• keep waste to a minimum by trying to prevent, reuse, recycle or recover waste (in that order)
• prevention – keeping products for longer, designing less material use
• preparing for re-use – clean, repair, and treat products for reuse rather than disposal
• recycling – turn waste into new products or materials, including composting
• recovery – such as anaerobic digestion to produce energy from waste
• disposal – incineration and landfill as a last resort, without energy recovery
• separate and store your waste recycling safely and securely

Alongside these regulations, the UK government has set several recycling targets for the coming years that apply to businesses. These include:

• by 2030, the preparing for re-use and recycling of municipal waste increases to a minimum of 60% by weight
• 75% of packaging waste to be recycled each year by 2030
• 85% paper/card, 81% glass, and 56% plastic packaging to be recycled by 2030
• cut how much waste goes to landfill to 10% by 2035
• reducing the usage of single use plastics and similar items

Useful links

• Simpler Recycling FAQs
• Government website
• WRAP's website

Find out more about what can be recycled in South Norfolk and Broadland.