Did you know about the new recycling rules? New rules regarding recycling come into play this week (from the 31st March) that will affect both homes and businesses. They are intended to end the ‘postcode lottery’ where different councils collect different materials, as this causes confusion for residents.
The change standardises most household recycling into four streams:
- Residual waste (non-recyclable waste)
- Food waste (mixed with garden waste, if appropriate)
- Paper and card
- Dry recyclables (glass, metals, plastic) (from the 31st of March 2027, “plastic film packaging and plastic bags will need to be collected with plastic recycling.”)
The local authority can choose what receptacles the recycling is collected in and may choose to batch paper and card with other dry recyclables, rather than have four separate bins.
For example Southwark Council, where Blue Patch is based, has brown bins for food waste, a blue recycling bin for paper and card and dry recyclables, and a green residual waste bin. Check your local council for information on their recycling.
A full list of what materials can and some of the materials that cannot be collected is in Schedule 1 of The Separation of Waste (England) Regulations 2024. The rules apply to most homes and flats.
Householders can be issued with a fixed penalty notice for waste offences of up to £400. These are typically issued for using an unlicensed waste carrier or fly tipping and councils are advised to apply proportionate use.
The Government found that intervention was necessary because “Waste generation produces negative environmental externalities. It emits greenhouse gases when sent to treatment such as incineration or landfill. When waste cannot be prevented, recycling reduces the environmental costs of products/materials being disposed of. This is because recycling is a less carbon intensive process. It also generates value by providing raw materials for manufacturing. However, current measures for household collection of recyclable materials, such as landfill tax or dry recycling separation, are proving insufficient to increase recycling beyond the current level of 44%-45% and reduce the amount of residual waste produced. Loose requirements on local authority (LA) waste collections have led to a variety of different collection systems and materials collected, leading to different recycling performance and experience for householders across England.”
Micro-businesses (those with fewer than 10 full time equivalent employees) will be exempt from the changes until the 31st March 2027. Then they will need to “arrange for recycling of core recyclable waste streams.” Many businesses in our Blue Patch community are micro-businesses.
For businesses with more than ten employees, the changes are not new as they have had to follow the rules since March 2025 and “must arrange separate collections for the core recyclable waste streams: glass, metal, plastic, paper and card, and food waste”.
The impact of simpler recycling rules
This is going to be a small daily habit change, with a big national impact. In England in 2024, local authorities collected 21.9 million tonnes of waste, an increase on the previous year of 0.6%. 9.6 million tonnes was recycled (about 43.8%) and 12.3 million tonnes was not recyclable.
The target is to reach 65% recycled by 2035 (2018 Resources and Waste Strategy) and “to support the Government’s levelling up agenda (via Simpler Recycling) and commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.” Waste emissions contribute approximately 5.8% of UK greenhouse gas emissions (Seventh Carbon Budget, 2023).
We all need to do our bit to reduce the amount of residual waste that is collected by our local councils. Individuals will need to sort and clean the different types of waste in their homes and businesses will need to sort and arrange recycling for their waste streams. Have you arranged for recycling for your business?