Understanding the Simpler Recycling Regulation
By the 31st of March 2025, new recycling regulations will come into effect, requiring businesses across England must ensure that all food waste is separated out from other waste streams and presented separately for collection by an approved waste contractor.
'Simpler Recycling' for businesses: How to be compliant
Understanding the legislation
As per new government legislation, all non-household municipal premises in England, excluding micro-firms (businesses with fewer than 10 full-time equivalent employees), will be, provisionally, required to comply with the following regulations by 31st March 2025:
Separate food waste collections: You must arrange for separate collection of your food waste, diverting it from general waste streams.
Compliant waste presentation: Food waste must be presented in a manner that adheres to the new legislation.
These regulations are designed to improve the quality and quantity of waste all businesses, prisons, hospitals, care homes, office blocks, independent schools & colleges, garages and transport hubs. Businesses with more that 10 full time employees and other non-household premises will need to have separate collections for the following core mixed recyclable waste materials: glass, metal, plastic, paper & cardboard, and food waste.
Taking action
- Confirm if these regulations apply to your business
- Understand what waste you produce and in what quantity
- Review your current waste management practices and processes
- Contact a trusted Waste Management firm to help with configuring the best system for your business
- Familiarise yourself with the specific details of the proposed new regulations and educate your team
Business advantages
- An opportunity to review all services and save costs by optimising waste collection services
- Doing the right thing for the environment by recovering waste food is a key part of improving your sustainability credentials
- Having a compliant system will protect your brand and avoid fines
Understand your waste
- All organic content including items that should be emptied out of a recyclable tub.
- All food intended for human or pet consumption, regardless of nutritional value
- Biodegradable materials from food processing or preparation, including bones, eggshells, fruit and vegetable scraps, tea bags, and coffee grounds
All uncontaminated Paper & Cardboard are allowed to be recycled except:
- Paper and card that contains glitter or foil
- Paper that is laminated
- Stickers and sticky paper
- Padded lined envelopes
- Paperback and hardback books
- Wallpaper
Plastic
- Plastic bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET, including amorphous, recycled PET), polypropylene (PP), and high-density polyethylene (HDPE)
- Pots, tubs, and trays made of PET (including amorphous, recycled, and crystalline PET), PP (including expanded PP), and polyethylene (PE)
- PE and PP plastic tubes larger than 50mm x 50mm
- Cartons for food, drink, and other liquids, including aseptic and chilled cartons.
- Plastic film packaging and plastic bags made of mono-polyethylene (mono-PE), mono-polypropylene (mono-PP), and mixed polyolefins PE and PP, including those metallised through vacuum or vapour deposition (to be included from 31st March 2027).
Glass
- Glass packaging including bottles and jars.
Metal
- Steel and aluminium tins & cans
- Steel and aluminium aerosols
- Aluminium foil
- Aluminium food trays
- Steel and aluminium jars and bottle lids
- Aluminium tubes
All non-food waste that cannot be recycled, meaning not glass, plastic, metal, paper or cardboard.
You must make plans to Educate Your Team
- Proper recycling starts with each of your employees.
- Offer training sessions or simple guides that explain which materials need to be recycled and how to separate them.
- Visual aids like posters or bin labels can reinforce these practices and reduce errors, ensuring compliance with the new standards.
- If you need training help for your team, please get in touch and we can support you with a bespoke training plan
We know this might sound like a lot of bins, but most businesses will only need three or four to be compliant:
- Bin 1 – dry mixed recycling bin for paper, glass, metals and plastics.
- Bin 1B – bin for paper and card (if your waste management partner has not completed the assessment for these to be collected with Mixed Recycling) It is important that you have a conversation with your waste company.
- Bin 2 – for food waste, which will need to be placed in its own container and cannot be mixed with any other type of waste.
- Bin 3 – for general waste, meaning anything that cannot be recycled.
The regulation is also meant to Crack down on waste crime
Approximately 18%, equating to 34 million tonnes of waste in England could be illegally managed according to the Environment Agency which negatively impacts the environment. Reforming the licensing system for waste carriers, brokers and dealers with mandatory digital waste tracking aims to centralise reporting and reduce illegal waste activity. Businesses mostly do not have to deal with license validation as long as your waste colletion company have done so.
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